We have been complete Radical unschoolers for the past year. We actually started our unschooling journey back in 1998 when our oldest son, Kevin, was driving me crazy by his refusal to do the school work *I* thought he should do. He had his own agenda, and it did not include doing what mom wanted him to do.

I basically gave up with him and told him "fine, teach yourself then" and that's what he proceeded to do. He taught himself lots of things over the next few years and has never suffered for my lack of "educating him". We discovered that this "child- led learning" could also be called "unschooling". I began to research and study the whole unschooling concept and realized that it really fit our whole philosophy of homeschooling. Really, who makes up the rules of what children should learn and when? And how relevant is some of the things we force our children to learn in school?

Since deciding we were unschoolers (sometime in 1999) we have gone through many changes in our life. Both my husband and I spent time working in a Christian school. We ended up putting some of our children into the school during this time. I "unschooled" myself in librarianship and learned how to organize and set up a library. My husband "unschooled" himself in the sciences and taught high school physical science, biology, and chemistry. He also did a stint as a history teacher, economics and speech teacher as well as his personal favorite bible. I substituted for high school english and Math. Spending time in a school setting further encouraged us in our unschooling philosophy.

Now we have entered the state of radical unschooling. We provide for our children a rich educational environment. But we don't force our children to write, study, read, learn. And guess what? They do it anyway! Stephanie has been teaching herself French. Adam has educated himself in opera and music appreciation as well as reading classics that have been turned into muscial operettas (Les Miserables, Hunchback of Notre Dame). The little ones, Cassie and Eric, have learned about penguins and foxes. All I have done is provided the necessary learning tools when the interest was shown.

My children are social (in their own way), imaginative, articulate, and amazingly bright for their ages. Unschooling works.

We've finally settled into our new beach house in Anigua, Guam. It's a beautiful location, large yard for the children to play in full of mango trees, banana trees and coconut trees - and our own private beach. The house is small, yet cozy and reminds me of the beach houses near Lang bay in Powell River, B.C.

Along with a beach house comes all kinds of wildlife. There are the hermit crabs who sport the shells of the snails you can also see in the yard. Roosters, chickens and their chicks roam freely throughout the yard belonging to no one in particular. Our 10+ cats are thriving in the freedom to climb trees, roam the beach and chase the chickens.

Two ducks live next door and frequent our yard to share the rotten mangos with their little ducklings...which is the reason for this blog! Ducklings are so much cuter than baby chicks. They are yellow and fluffy and waddle around on their little webbed feet pecking at mangos and peeping at their momma. Eric, my 6yo, is enthralled with the ducklings. To his surprise he was able to catch one yesterday evening. He was so excited that I was afraid he was going to squeeze the poor thing. He really wanted to keep it for a pet in his bedroom. He put it in an old lego bucket that it wasn't able to hop out of. Kevin, our eldest, was over purusing through our books looking for something to read and pulled out the "story of Ping" and said "here's a duck book for him". Eric was just trying to figure out a name for his duck when I showed him the book and he excited agreed that "Ping" was a perfect name for his duck.

Once he figured out he could catch a duckling, it wasn't soon before we had two ducklings in the bucket. As the sun began to set I quietly informed Eric that the babies needed to go back to their momma for the night. I really expected an outcry at this but he was willing to let them go.

This morning I found out why he was so willing...Before anyone was up I heard the creaking of our wooden floors and quiet steps of a little boy sneaking out the back door. I heard giggling out in the yard...guess what the little rascal was up to? More duck hunting! Yup, now that he had this new found skill (catching ducks) he decided the thrill was more in the hunting and catching than in the keeping!

Maggie is our blessed little girl who went to live with her heavenly father on November 1st, 2005. I wish I had a picture to share with you. But, alas,I do not. You could look over at our photo page and see pictures of our other children and imagine how beautiful Maggie would have been as we tend to "clone" our children (they all look alike!)

I've been wanting to share Maggie's story with the world. It's been so hard though. But here goes.

Maggie was due on December 23rd, 2005. She was to have been our Christmas baby. Our sixth blessing in our quiver full. (9th baby, as she was preceeded by 3 babies lost through miscarriage/stillbirth). Throughout most of my pregnancy I had no problems. Never one to suffer through morning sickness, my biggest concern was to not gain too much weight. In the last few weeks of October I began to experience swelling in my feet. It got so bad that I could barely walk. My doc told me it was "normal" as I had been on my feet alot doing substitute teaching for high school english at GICA. I had wanted to get an ultrasound to find out the sex of our baby for the past two months but had yet to have one scheduled. Finally, my doc consented to an ultrasound at 32 weeks.

On November 1st I went in to have the ultrasound. For the past week I had been a bit concerned because I didn't feel much movement from the baby. That, and the swelling in my feet, made for many sleepless nights for me.

During the ultrasound the tech was pretty silent and only asked about 3 times if this was my first ultrasound for this pregnancy. His asking this made me a bit suspcious. He also couldn't tell me if I was having a girl or a boy because of the baby's postion (back up). When it was over I was left to wait and worry for about 20 minutes. Finally I was told to go see the Radiologist who wanted to discuss the ultrasound with me. Before I could get into see him, I was told my OB doc was on the phone for me.

Dr. Shieh told me there was something wrong with my baby. And that I needed to terminate the pregnancy right away. Now he is not one to do an abortion so I just about flipped at his use of the word "terminate". What he meant was "deliver" the baby ASAP. Doctors should really learn to choose their words carefully!

My husband, Les, and I went to the doc's office where we were told our baby had "fetal hydrops" - which meant severe swelling in all her tissues. The chances for survival were extremely slim. Immediate delivery was the only option - preferably by C-section as he didn't feel she could survive a normal birth. Eight natural births and here I was finally having a C-section!

From there everything happened so fast. I barely had time to get the word out to our pastor and friends for prayer. I was so scared. Doc asked me if I wanted to get my tubes tied while he was in there. After everything I've gone through - nine pregnancies, a miscarriage and two stillborn babies and now this - I knew that it was time to "close the doors". Such a hard, momentous decision to make.

Margaret "Maggie" Elizabeth entered the world just after 5pm on November 1, 2005. She died peacefully in her daddy's arms just over an hour later. I never got to hold my sweet baby girl while she was alive. I was able to touch her with only one hand. Her body was so swollen from the edema. She probably weighed a good 7lbs from all the extra fluid. She had blonde "peach fuzz" all over her head. She never opened her eyes, but I imagine they were as blue as her brothers and sisters were. I was wheeled to the recovery room and by the time I was brought to my room she had already passed.

I held her still body for another hour before I finally let her go. I examined her little body, counting her fingers and toes. On her left hand her fingers were webbed between her middle and ring fingers. On her right hand the webbing was on the same fingers but only up to the first knuckle. I don't know if she would have had any other problems if she had lived. I've tried to research what the webbing was a sign of, but haven't been very successful in finding out. If anyone reads this and has any ideas I'd love to hear about them! Email me.

We decided not to have a funeral for her. To this day I don't know if this was the right decision to make. I have no final resting place where I can go visit her. Maybe we should have done this. We were worried about the cost, both emotionally and financially. I think decisions like that shouldn't have to be made so soon after a child's death. Both Les and I were in a state of shock that took several weeks to leave us. Reflecting on this issue now I wish we had more family on Guam that could have helped us with this.

So that's her story. She will always live in our hearts. And we know she is with Jesus and our other children, and that someday we will be reunited.