She keeps in touch with friends on two continents. She plays with words, formatting, music and image manipulation. Much of Holly's time is spent on MySpace, out and about in the cyber world while safe at home. He's been to Washington state, Colorado, Oregon, Texas, Florida and North Carolina, mostly by air. I had never known a teenager before to save over $5,000 and use it mostly for airline tickets. Marty worked a fulltime job the whole time he was seventeen, and for the past six months he has been traveling, mostly at his own expense. His reasons were thoughtful and sound, and he is only twenty-one years old. He's had one small promotion and although I helped him with a resume, he decided not to apply for a senior position quite yet. He seems extremely happy to be where he is, doing what he's doing. Thanks to cell phones and instant messaging, one of us usually has some Kirby news. Marty has been to visit him, and Holly plans to go next year. He had been twenty-one for less than a month when he moved 600 miles away. Kirby was nearly twenty-one when he was offered a job in Austin, working for Blizzard, a video game company.

It seems this would be a good time to discuss end results, with two of ours past 'school age.' There was some talk recently of the 'end results' of the sort of parenting and unschooling our family has lived and shared. Now they are, as a group, entering adulthood. I remember vividly when they were five, and three, and a newborn. Our baby and only girl is 'sweet sixteen.' Our two boys are at the traditional ages of majority in different ways, in different places and times. This alignment ends on January 14, when Marty turns 19, but for a couple of months we have the only and last set of landmark years we'll ever have. As of November 2, our children (who are no longer children) have attained a set of momentous ages: 21, 18 and 16. Our family is experiencing a sort of magic window. When planets line up I'm happy, even though I believe it to have no effect whatsoever on humans on earth outside the happiness they might have if they know about it. I like looking at a digital clock right at 11:11, for its pattern and symmetry. I don't believe in magic, but I find joy in wonderful coincidences and confluences.

Magic window air