The coolest thing happened the other day in Little’s Art class. I was sitting at a table with a few six(ish) year old girls. I love listening to the conversations that come up among the young people, often informative, always entertaining. I love their ability to speak their mind honestly, without any ill intentions, a skill I try to emulate.

This conversation was particularly insightful, for me anyway. There were 3 or 4 girls seated at an art table. One of them started singing, which of course made me happy right away. Her friend asked her what it was. She explained she was singing in Arabic. She learns Arabic at her religious school. She then went on to talk about all the holidays she and her family celebrate as Muslims. Her friend responded by explaining that she learns Hebrew at her religious school, and talked about holidays her family celebrate as Jews. A third girl talked about how she didn’t know any other languages, but shared some of the celebrations she and her family enjoy as Christians. This topic went on for a little while, each girl very proud of their own family traditions. At the time I was just struck with how much confidence each child had in explaining what was important to them, and how they all listened to each other. Their differences were something they embraced, and they really enjoyed hearing about each other’s experiences.

Many hours later, after the excitement of the day wore off, I sat in relative quiet and had some time to reflect on the day. That conversation completely stood out to me as the biggest highlight. So often as a parent I talk to my kids about diversity, respecting others for who they are. I have tried to live by example, although I am sure I am not always successful! Ask my son what I think about people who choose a different path from ours (religion, school, etc) and he will tell you the mantra that I try to live by. People all live different lives, not better or worse, just different. We can learn something from everyone. But how often have I seen this in practice, really? These kids and their table talk have given me such hope and excitement. When we started AJCW, we really wanted a place where everyone was not just welcome, but embraced. Here we are just 5 weeks in, and the proof was right there in front of me. Amazing! I couldn’t be more pleased. Maybe we can have a small impact, by creating an environment that allows everyone to be who they are, and embrace others. I am so excited for the future, and thankful for the opportunity to watch these kids learn and grow.

So let me back track. I am a lover of documentaries. I watch the one that many know about; Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead. It was a pretty powerful doc’ that I was truly intrigued about. So much so that I wanted to go out and buy a juicer and put myself on a juice reboot for at least a week or two and then see how it goes from there. But anyway, I had given it some time b/c I know this about myself…. I get an idea, want to do it “now” and then loose interest. But this one stuck with me and I really wanted to give it a go. I figured even if I did not do a reboot I’d at least juice for a meal here and there. But really, my goal was to full-juice fast for a good 10 days.

Well, purchased the juicer and having a blast with it. The kids love it. SBJ loves it. Everyone loving it. I declare, “tomorrow I start my juicing reboot,” and off I go. Well, I started well. I enjoyed breakfast, I even enjoyed my lunch juice…. however…. it did not take more than the kids eating some super-duper yums for me to just cave to starvation! I had prepared this super-yum lunch for them. Saute’d some bell peppers and onions with sweet sauce and they were eating them on flat pitas. So yummy. And I was getting super-hungry. I suppose it was not the best idea to think I could start a juice-deal while being out and about ALL day long teaching classes! I probably should have thought that one through. But I also bummed that I had caved. Is it that I am just so weak to with stand?! Is it that nursing just makes me more famished than the typical being? Is it that I just made excuses to cave? ; )

Whatever the deal…. I saw myself deeply today w/in my oldest. K has this tendencies to fall passionately in love with ideas and wants to do them “now.” Right now. Not later-now. Right now. He reminds me of me and really love that of him. Sometimes, of course, it’s harder to deal with b/c it’s someone else’s “right-now,” but I get that about him and love that he finds many things passionately interesting. He is open to most experiences and wants to delve deeply into those things he does find interesting.

Ah…. well what about that juicing thing you ask? I will be making a better attempt at this tomorrow and over the weekend. I am thinking that due to nursing and needing to keep up with that and not feel completely depleted, I may go to juicing breakfast and dinner. Lunch is really ‘my’ meal of the day anyway. And that could work pretty closely to what I was aiming for. But in the meantime, I’m going for another try tomr

AJCW offers activities, classes, and social opportunities for our children, tweens and teens. We are relaxed homeschoolers and unschoolers who believe in the power of interest-based learning.  We believe in learning through living.  Children, youth and adults are naturally curious and highly motivated to learn about things that interest them, that they have questions about, and that they want to master.  AJCW supports a community of learners in which children, tweens, teens and adults engage in activities that are meaningful, challenging, fun, and connected to real life.

AJCW is a secular community where all faiths, diversity, cultures and experiences are welcomed.  We are committed to respectful relationships with those whose life experiences are diverse and expect the same of all participants.

AJCW was intentionally created to be a caring collective homeschooling community in which children and adults feel safe, accepted, and treated with deep respect.  Relationships and reasoning (rather than power or position) are what allow AJCW to work as it does. We trust in children and adults’ ability to work together for our common good and to actively participate in how our community functions.

There isn’t a list of rules and consequences at AJCW. We hope and expect that everyone will strive to be safe, kind, helpful, and respectful to one another. We hope and expect that everyone will work to create a caring community in which we do our best to cooperate, communicate and resolve conflicts peacefully. We hope that people’s actions are based not on a set of rules, but on the shared values of being safe, kind, helpful, and respectful to one another and respectful of the facilities we use.

In all of our activities, we hope children and youth will feel safe, challenged and supported by committed adults.

How to be involved with AJCW?

We have a Facebook page where all classes, workshops, field trips and more will be listed. Go there and “like” AJCW to stay connected in that way: https://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/AJ-Collective-Workshops-AJCW/190401933797

We also have a yahoo group where participants of current classes get their weekly updates from facilitators, but also new and future members can get connected and stay updated: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AJCW

And finally, all workshops and happenings are regularly updated at: www.nakitababy.com. Subscribe at the website to get updates as they are posted.

Fees

There are no “joiner” fees. Fees to participate are all set by facilitators of those specific classes or workshops, and registration happens directly with them. Field trips and other activities will simply be based on individual/group rates as they arise. Details will always be included with new opportunity announcements. Be sure to subscribe to each of the above ways to receive announcements as they develop.

AJCW Organizing Group

Organizers who can be reached for questions or support:

Amy Jarjusey             mommy(AT)nakitababy(DOT)com
847-271-0965

Jen Kafizov                 tikistanford(AT)yahoo(DOT)com
847-220-3971

Where We Meet

Workshops/Classes are held at:

Ethical Humanist Society

7574 N. Lincoln Ave.

Skokie, IL 60077

When We Meet

We meet on Thursdays for all day fun! Class schedules are set prior each session. Stay connected through our website, yahoo group and Facebook page to find out about the current and future sessions!

We were having such a great time we did not want to leave! We called the main desk on Wednesday and asked if they’d let us stay 1 more night at the same group rate that we had gotten with/for the conference. They obliged and we were all psyched to add a night/day to our stay! SO much fun!

The trip home was super smooth and probably even made record time. Got to unpack when we got home b/c it was early enough, and thus enjoyed my birthday weekend!!! Yes, you heard me… weekend! My bday was yesterday, but the kids and SBJ started Saturday spoiling me rotten. I got breakfast in bed on both Saturday and Sunday! I got several massages from little and big fingers alike ; ) I even had dinner cooked for me Saturday and we ate out on gift cards on Sunday! We had a lovely family movie night Saturday, and the kids ventured out with SBJ and purchased gifts for me with their own money! I am just SO touched at the efforts made for my bday this year. I kinda got used to it not being a big deal for anyone but me : ) But this year! WOAW! Really, I feel so lucky and blessed. D purchased me chapstick and chocolate with her own bucks. She also made me some amazing art work! K bought me a back scratcher : ) He knows me well! It was just so thoughtful and I feel so blessed. SBJ’s efforts, gifts and generosity were over-the-top, but his card that he made/wrote to me…. I’m just one lucky lady.

Ahhhh…… so as I dwell in la-la-land, I am hit with the reality that we are back to reality tomorrow! Back to our routines. Classes and work. I am looking forward to a father-daughter dinner Wednesday! A lil’ expansion to my celebrations!!! It’s going to be a great month this month! Lot’s of fun things planned AND I’ll be an Auntie any day now! Lots of exciting times!  Can’t wait!

This year I decided I would make the same investment, and I noticed a huge change in my kids too. They were very comfortable with the in’s and out’s of the conference and had no hesitation in participating this week at all. I took part in more talks this time and have to say that I attended two in particular that I found very inspirational. I was jazzed by things discussed and had a few lightening bolt moments. I always find that so enlightening when you are just doing your thing and think you’re doing pretty well and then someone offers a slightly different spin, or a slightly different perspective that offers a huge boost of rejuvenation that you realize how much better you could be doing what you are doing! That has been my experience twice this week and thoroughly enjoyed my time here.

This evening has been one of also the many moments of parental trepidation I have had this week too. This week has been a growth experience for me as a mama and for my kids as older kids. They have a few friends here from Chicago which is so great for them and their comfortability. But also they have recognized acquaintances they have made in the years past as well. They have had ventures all over the waterpark on their own (with friends, but without parents). We have seen them handle responsibility quite superbly as well. A basic “please check in every once in awhile” has given them the glory of exploring the world with friends, and showing us just how respectful they can be with that trust. I have been super impressed as they have not ever requested such responsibility. I doubted when this moment would ever come in fact : ) There are times when my oldest will (still) ask me to toast his waffles in the mornings and I wonder if he’ll ever cross the street on his own! So to see this spurt in development is both exciting and completely terrifying for me as a mama.

So at the family dance party this evening several of us lost steam before 11pm. We were quite ready to turn in and K really really wanted to stay with his friends. He’s turning 10 in just less than two months from now, so with much trepidation I told him that he could stay with his friends and walk back to our room on his own. I gave him a curfew!!! Yikes. I could not believe this was happening as I was doing it. He challenged me on the idea of “why not?” and all I could think of was, “yeah, well why not?!” He’s never shown me that he can’t handle responsibility of this nature, and he’s never asked for it either. If anything, he is the worry-wart in most every situation (even more so than his mother at times! ; ) . So having a trusty wristwatch on hand we agreed to a 1 hour curfew and off he ran with his buddies.

We wandered back to the room and slowly got everyone ready and into bed. I saw SBJ’s trepidation set in as well : ) He was saying to D that he was going to go down and get K in a little bit. I bellowed from the bedroom, “you let him try this! I want to see how he handles this.” He had to chuckle b/c he knew he was being more of a worry-wart than I was this time around. The hour flew by quickly and just about 5-10 minutes before midnight… a knock-at-the-door! There he was with a big grin on his face. He had a blast, played with some new people, enjoyed the dance and the music, and even played some zombie tag. Wow….. what a change. I’m very proud of him (and me for that matter : ) It was a brand new experience for us all and it unfolded quite naturally and comfortably.

I think there are times that I worry about being a mother to older children! I am so used to being around little kids. I have always nannied (since I was 12 years old!) for *little* kids! I have not been with kids over the age of say…. 7-8 years old. And now a few of my kiddos are reaching beyond that point, and I am becoming an older, hopefully wiser, mom. BUT…. feeling like time has not changed for me personally at the same time this is going on. I wonder (often) how to grasp the concept of my children being teenagers, being young adults and moving out, and even adults, marriage and grandkids. (That’s a whole other part of my personal aging to contend with!) But it’s a weird limbo feeling. Sometimes I get this feeling…. “WOAH! I’m the mother to 4 kiddos! How did that happen so quickly!?” And other times, I have this epiphany like this evening, “we CAN do it! Growing up is not that painful as people say!” ; ) It’s really quite enjoyable, this journey of motherhood. It has it’s rocky parts of course, but when your relationships can be built on a sound foundation the journey has less rocks on the road, and more smoother pavement. It doesn’t always feel like an up-hill climb. It can, and often does, feel like I am flying downhill with my hands off of the handlebars. This process of not only growing up myself,  but also trying to become a better mom day-by-day AND deschooling my brain in the process, WHILE watching my kids grow up faster than a blink of my eye…. well…. that’s just a plain-old balancing act. But certainly one worth figuring out and enjoying every step of the way!

We are seeing lots of sheep farms and plateaus at this point. The terrain is just stunning. You have dessert leading up to these deep reds and browns of plateaus that are breathtaking. I love driving through all of these dinky little freighter towns were the excitement of the day seems to be the trains rolling through. There is tumbleweed blowing past us and across the road and it seems the businesses only open if a customer walks in. Otherwise, not much is going on. What it must be like to live in these tiny places. Us big-city folk have a hard time picturing it with all of the luxuries outside our front door! It isn’t long before we see the Roswell city limit sign and we are joking about how we don’t even need any signs to tell us exactly where we are at this point.

Businesses have aliens standing at their front doors, and the street lamps have alien head covers. It’s pretty trippy this little town. McD’s is built like a space ship, and of course, the highlight being the UFO Museum and Research Center! Where…. I might add…. S is quite certain that we met the real-live aliens! The statues that you see behind K in one of these photos started moving around and and glowing and then the UFO was lit with lights and spinning motions. He would not rationalize with me that these were pretend aliens, and a conversation with SBJ that evening on the phone was the full description of how we met the aliens in Roswell! To this day he remarks at the photos as “those are the ones!” To freaking cute.

Well, I forced my kiddos to eat at the spaceship McD’s and I have to say that they had officially sworn off that food for life after that visit. They even told me later that I “forced them to eat that crap”…. lol. I just thought that some fries at the spaceship would be cool. Their hungry bellies had different opinions of that! ; ) Once we were fueled up and headed out it was pretty quickly decided that having accomplished their “wanna’s” on this trip they were over-ready to head home. They were really missing daddy at that point, and while we could have done an adventure to a cave or cavern as we had discussed, they were really eager to just be home at this point. So we map out a journey plan and head north.

If we can make it to OK that same night, we could make it home the next day. That was sort of the game plan but we had to see how everyone fared that ambition. We passed a few more small towns on the way back to route 40, but by far my favorite was that of Portales. When you entered city limits there was this enormous sign welcoming you…. “Welcome to Portales! 17,000 really friendly people (only 3-4 old grouchy ones).” What’s not to love? We made awesome time, till we hit TX. Texas just felt a little more treacherous. Such a tiny little land mass to cross over, so insanely smelly!!!, and M just needed to nurse more than usual. This was her first and only rough spot in the entire journey! She was just such a trooper, and this night I needed to stop 3 consecutive times to nurse. And on that 3rd time I told the kids that if she was just not happy, we were stopping and trying again tomorrow. That I was not going to push this further than needed.

It was during that 3rd attempt that I pulled into one of these road-side hotels and the kids were pleading with me to keep going. They (my trusty city kids) told me that if we had to stop could we at least stop at a nice place that was clean?! ; )  Oh my I nearly lost it on that on. It was just too funny. But they absolutely hate being teased about being the city kids. I obliged, but said that if we are looking for another place, then M gets to nurse one more time. I pulled off on some really dark side ramp leading back to 40 and this seemed to be the key to getting her to sleep. She passed out, I was able to get her into her seat, and we were happily back on the road headed to OK. That night we made it till about midnight and just outside of OK City in Yukon, OK. Found a great little place and got some zzz’s.

Hitting the road the next day I realized just how few trees we had been seeing as there now seemed to be so many. It was beautiful, and a smooth ride through the rest of OK. I noted several cool places that we’d check out when we’d pass through town again. We found dug up some old CD’s we had not listened to in quite some time and had a really fun sing along, and saw so many horse farms it was such a beautiful sight! We’d never seen that many horses running free out in the wilderness as the surely intended to be. It was super cool for especially D, the horse lover. Part of our trip was even entertained by K with his awesome (super powered) magnet balls that he picked up at the crater in AZ. These things are insanely powerful that they hold to each other through his cheek skin! So he was being a little clown in the back seat entertaining us with his new toy. Quite funny!

It was a relief to enter into MO, and that was where we pulled off for a Subway stop. Sarcoxie, MO had a little place to pull off and we grabbed a bite to eat. A nice break from the car, and prepped them for some sleep time in the car. We set up some movies and got everyone set for the trek across MO. Saw lots of signs for caverns which I’d love to do with the kids some day soon, and even say a bald eagle in flight right over our car on the highway! The scenery was lovely and made me wonder why MO tends to get a bad rap? There was this amazing lit-up mountain/hilltop with trees totally a glow in xmas lights and it was labeled Santa’s Magical Kingdom. If the kids were not so determined to get to their own bed that night we would have stopped there for sure. But even they seemed to look at it and not blink and eye that evening : ) They wanted home. MO felt super-duper long to me and I was eager to reach St. Louis. Once we did (finally) get there we stopped for gas and some ice cream. The ran around some McD’s tunnels before our one-last-leg-of this trip.

Once I figured that I was on the right highway home, it was smooth sailing and went really quite quickly. We pulled into Chicago about 1am that evening/morning with 3 asleep and K entertaining me with the movie he was watching. We decided to stop in on SBJ at his work just to say “hi” and we’re finally home. We joked about how excited we are to drink Chicago water again, and of course to lay head to bed in our own home. I just love pulling into Chicago after being away. That skyline is breath-taking and it’s just such a warm feeling of returning “home.” We needed to cruise up LSD, so that was an added bonus in my book. To have the lake on one side, and the city on the other. It’s nice to have Chicago as your home. It felt like we had been gone for months. Even now, being home and catching up on things I still feel like were gone for months. I have not quite adjusted to the fact that we are returning to our regularly-scheduled and still revelling in the glory of this journey. There is the overwhelming sense of accomplishment I feel, a higher step of wisdom, a bite from the travel bug now that I know that my kids super-dig being on the road, and a serious eagerness to do this again sooner vs later!

Upon return, it just so happens that Santa had visited while were away, and so when SBJ returned home from work that morning, the kids got yet another round of openings and it was just a perfect round up to the holiday season for all of us!

We were trying to hit the road runing this first day. K wanted to get to Roswell, NM which was just a bit off-track from where we were headed, but if we made good head-way the first day we’d be alright in terms of nights in a hotel/gas costs along the way. We are cruising and thinking that surely CA would have lots of gas stations along the way to AZ, I’d be ok running low. Big mistake on my part. We are cruising and it’s looking like I’m about to run empty before we hit AZ, and low and behold we come to Essex. Keep in mind, Essex, CA is this tiny little hole in the wall, and the gas stop was literally called “GAS”…. I could not pay at the pump and was so thrilled to have just found gas! I pay for $60 worth of gas only to get to the pump and realize that the prize per gallon is $4.89!!!! What the #*$*&#????? Yep. But what am I going to do that this point!? The kids opt to use the bathroom and we go back indoors after parking the car. I see this sign on the register, ” We are here in the middle of nowhere to service you. It costs us a lot to run this station in the middle of nowhere. So save your complaints for someone else.” LITERALLY…. this is what this sign reads. I just start laughing. And then begin noticing all of the “don’t touch this” signs all over the place. Well…. as grouchy as they are in the middle of nowhere, I was thankful for the gas. (However a little less thrilled when I had to fill my tank less than 3 hours later! Cheapo-depo gas in Essex!)

We decided to just make this our pit stop and made some sandwiches and enjoyed the sunshine. It was a pretty spot and a space to sit and eat and run around a bit. We made it to Flagstaff that night. It ended up being a Ramen noodle and whatever was in the car kinda night as they really wanted a midnight swim that night. I was immediately falling in love with AZ. If had to choose among all the places in our whole trip I would choose AZ as my #1 with CO as my close second.  We pulled into Flagstaff and one stop off at a hotel did not prove to have a pool, but we were referred to another on Lucky Lane where we had a hot breakfast, and warm pool and a hot tub FULL of bubbles (the highlight!). What a blast!

We kick off our second day (Jan. 2nd) from Flagstaff and hadn’t gotten very far when we saw signs for a Meteor Crater in Winslow, AZ. I just thought, “how could we pass that up!?” When we tuned to the referred radio station it gave a brief history of how it was discovered, and tested by NASA. We just had to check that one out. This is was an incredible sight. The illusion of how small it seemed, but then with telescope markers set up you could really see just how huge this thing was. (Like a 6 foot man/statue placed at the bottom of the hole with a flag which could not be seen by naked eye very well. You could kind of spot the flag, but you could not see the guy. Then you scope out the telie and there it was! Really cool!) We had a blast there. Spent much more time than anticipated, and enjoyed a car picnic lunch before taking off again.

The second detour happened just before leaving AZ and just before sunset. We made it into the national park with the painted deserts and petrified forests. What an amazing sight! The pics I don’t feel even do this justice! They were just so amazing, and again….. love AZ. We cruised in quite a bit in and checked it all out, but due to wanting to get to NM that night AND sunset hitting soon, it was something we were checking out and putting on the ‘must do more next time’ list. I just would love to wander around there and soak that amazing place in.

Home that night was in Moriarty, NM. Such a lovely little place where they did me a huge service by cutting the rate of the hotel down quite a bit. Right before finding a hotel, we got lucky with a $2.89 gas stop and pizza which the kids were craving and begging for that night. That was a fun stop and we were then eager to find a hotel. Had anothter hot breakfast and a swim in the pool before heading out to Roswell in search of aliens and UFOs.