finally fall

and back on days. As in, Ray's no longer a vampire. The temperature has cooled significantly and its starting to feel like fall - in a good way. A few weeks back Ray commented that he was, for the first time in years, looking forward to the change of the season, now that its not all about "back to school" for him. That was nice to hear.

Unfortunately, he ended up not going with me to the Live and Learn Conference in NC. That was kind of a bummer, but my grandfather died and we (Mo and I) ended up going to his funeral Labor Day weekend - which was in MA - and going to the conference from there. Kind of a long drive and dull several days of waiting from Ray's perspective, so he opted out. The conference was fun, but the room and food situation would have been pretty stressful for Ray, it turned out, so I'm glad he missed that part, even though I'm bummed he didn't get to meet the really cool teens there.

Anyway, we're back to plotting trips to the skatepark and some other outings. While we were on the road, Mo discovered "claw" machines - you know, put a quarter in and cuss at the thing when if fails to grab a toy - and I suggested that we collect quarters at home for a trip to Walmart or some such just to play the claw. As soon as we got home Ray happened to comment that he hadn't ever eaten at IHOP, so now I'm scheming - there's an IHOP next to Walmart in Murfreesboro, maybe we can make a day of it.

Yup, that's what "field trips" look like in my world LOL! Hey kids! lets go out to eat and play some arcade games! Woo Hooo! And naturally, I'll find a way to tag this for the "learning plan" thingy... hmmm, lets see, we're still broke, so we'll need to set aside some cash to eat out, plus the Quest for Quarters (although that's more a Mo thing) - hey this isn't even hard. Real life actually does provide real learning opportunities. I just have to drive!

Okay, I'm in a whimsical mood, today, but this is the sort of thing I run into over and over in our family's journey deeper into the wilds of autodidacticism - once there's no need to play the school game there are countless learning opportunities everywhere! I actually found myself worrying about that a few weeks ago, especially with the vampire thing going on, but even then Ray was spending hours reading (!) on the computer, playing God of War (Greek mythology, problem solving, blood and guts), going to live musical events and waterskiing regularly. I could have wished for "summer school" that fabulous as a kid.

And to top it all off, summer vacation isn't ending for Ray, its just the shift from "waterskiing season" to "skateboarding season". He's been hunting for his boards and checking out his equipment all week.

Allowance

The financial situation seems to finally be turning around, after a pretty rough winter, so George and I have started talking about the allowance issue. We hadn't considered it with Morgan at all, in part bc she's so much younger, but also bc she's right there with me, and often George, for the shopping, so talking about finances, budgets, savings, allocating funds, all that stuff is a regular part of her daily life. Ray's new to the family, and with his vampire lifestyle hasn't been awake for shopping opportunities. That's changing, but still, two kids at the store is often more than I'm up for. Either one of them is fabulous, but for some reason, the two together seem to ping off each other until I feel like I'm stuck in a popcorn popper full of bells and rubber snakes. Fantasies of duct tape.

Anyway, that has left us with a bit of a disparity, bc Mo's wants are still pretty easy to say yes to for a dollar or less, so she tends to get something whenever we go out. That's a big part of what's driving the allowance question. I want Ray to feel like he's every bit as much a member of the family as Morgan, and here she is, getting a bit of candy or a toy every day or so, while he gets... groceries. So far he hasn't said anything about that, but I'd like to head off any sense of unfairness, if possible, before it can start. Its a fair estimate that she gets twenty dollars worth of this kind of spending a month, and that's a do-able sum to give Ray, too, with our usual income.

Another issue has to do with the whole idea of finances as a way of learning about economics on a smaller scale than what he's been doing online. He can't learn about money if he doesn't have any, and he can't learn about making real world financial decisions unless he has enough to make decisions about. So the money is coming out of our "homeschool budget". Since those funds generally come out of my income, that will start next time I work at Morningside foods, and he'll get money on a monthly basis.

We're not tying allowance money to expectations of work. He has opportunities to work both here and jobs his mom sets up if he wants more money. Its possible he'll choose not to work for awhile as a result, but its not like we can afford to give him much. We're talking $20 a month, here. Still, if that's more than he's been used to getting (I honestly don't know) I wouldn't be surprised if he elected not to work for pay for a time.

I admit, my own knee-jerk first reaction to that is "that's not the way the real world works" but it doesn't take me long to see the fallacy of that kind of thinking. Sometimes it is the way the real world works. I've gotten a good bit of money that I haven't worked for and used it to buy property, build a house, renovate the barn, buy power tools. Its not that uncommon, and happens in a lot of different ways - windfalls or inheritances or a good stock portfolio or insurance money or whatever.

So that's the plan. If the family finances take another dip, we'll have to cut back, of course. That's the real life limitation to the allowance thing - its dependent on the family income.