Scraping Up Against the Iceberg

I've considered broaching this topic for four years now, the homeschooling thing. I'm somewhat skittish when it comes to debates, though, and learned early in the game that education choices are much like politics and religion when it comes to the fervor with which opinions are expressed.  Like a spooked mare, I canter back into my opinionated stall. Four years later, though, with a little more research and experience and face-flat-falls and teaching-hours logged, I'm ready to stand without wobbly knees and assert. 

In choosing to go one direction, I am, by necessity, choosing NOT to go in ten others. This has to be one of the more paralyzing of the realities. It's the curse of the blank canvas, the blinking cursor, and, as I'm being honest here, the spring school enrollment season.

I was milling about with a paper plate of pastries and mimosa in a plastic tumbler when a fellow shower-goer commented on Eden, who was sitting with her baby sister on the couch. "Your daughter is just beautiful! And so responsible and poised! Where does she go to school?"

"Eden?" I replied. "Oh, we don't send her anywhere. Why educate a girl? The less she knows, the better."

Well, perhaps those weren't my exact words. They may as well have been, though, for the look on the face I saw staring back at me when I replied that we homeschool. This was not an expression of interest or surprise or even disgust, but one of bewilderment, perhaps even mild horror. 

The thing is, this response wasn't hurtful. Four years in, I'm no stranger to the kinds of opinions, expressed or implied, that the homeschooling conversation elicits. More than anything, it's been an experience in reading my audience and choosing my words carefully. Even if the other half of the conversation is genuinely interested (which isn't always the case,) there's always more backstory to explain how we've reached the path we're walking when it comes to educating our kids. I don't count it a bad thing to learn how to say less and rest in the knowledge that the backstory is there and truth is truth, regardless of whether others understand or agree with it. Alongside this is the knowledge that much of the searching and wrestling along this path is held in common with parents who've chosen other paths. 

I remember fondly a time when I didn't think about neighborhood schools versus school-of-choice, Montessori versus traditional classrooms, nine-month versus year-round schedules, English versus Spanish- or Mandarin-Immersion programs, public versus charter versus private. More than that, I didn't think to think about the model of education in general. I grew up attending (and doing fine at) my nearest public school, and the pre-parent me didn't really think about sniffing out another path for our kids. When Eden approached kindergarten age, I, like every other parent in my position, found these decisions and so many others before me. The Next Right Thing, for us, was to pursue a well-rounded education outside the traditional brick-and-mortar institution. 

Dear other parents: in stating my reasons for educating my kids, I am NOT JUDGING YOUR DECISION NOT TO HOMESCHOOL YOURS. This whole thing came as a surprise to us, too. I can't wrap it up neatly to state a principle and end the manifesto, either. The choice wasn't presented and then removed; we are called to do the next right thing at every breath. The week in which I write this has included hours of instruction, frustration, researching homeschool defectors and area programs, breakthroughs, and then, just now, my pre-reader bringing me the cereal box and sounding out the word "life." This is HUGE for him.

It's huge for me, too.

Susanna's Sleep

It's a primal relationship. I'm hers; she's mine. We go together.

She is three months old now. Older. But I will say three months until I can't any longer. She sleeps a good long stretch at night, from 8/9pm, through a dream feed, and then often until 5 or 6am. 

Her siblings all slept farther away from me, either in the crib in the nursery from the get-go, or in the bassinet in another room. I couldn't sleep for the little grunty baby sounds, so we planned sleeping arrangements accordingly. And we started off in that direction with Susanna, but after only a week or two, I saw how much better she slept when I was in the room with her. It was as if just hearing my breathing put her at ease. Her little grunts and wiggles weren't keeping me from sleep at all; chalk it up to sleep-deprivation or being a more seasoned mother, I just was not as quickly alarmed at innocuous infant sounds. This preference on her part (and later, on mine) was providential, as our rooming arrangements at my parents' while we were between houses allowed a spot for the bassinet in, yep. Our room. Susanna was 5 weeks old when we moved into Yaya and Boppa's.

When we moved into the new house, her nursery was tucked right next to our room. I mean, it IS. It IS tucked right next to our room. With her changing table, and her clothes and diapers and wipes, and a cozy loveseat for nursing. And a crib that is set up but remains empty, even in those long stretches of the night, because the baby is tucked in her cozy bed next to her momma.

She's only three months, I tell myself. You're not doing any harm. It only feels prolonged because we did it differently with the others, and because I WANT everything prolonged with this likely-last baby. 

Right?

She sleeps nice long stretches at night, most of the time. But sometimes in the four-o-clock hour, and sometimes before that, she wants to nurse. I imagine her timer isn't set on Eastern Standard Time like mine. And I can't know if it's her sweet demeanor, or her close proximity to my sleeping ears, responding to her when she's just waking, but before she's upset. But when I pull myself out of my own slumber to bend over her little bed, she looks up at me with alert recognition, eyes big and sparkling in the dark, and her entire face, her whole body breaks into a smile at seeing me appear to pick her up, snuzzle her cheeks, and put her to the breast. 

These are the days.

Saturday Morning Winning

When I had one baby, I'd ask my mom to PLEASE watch her so I could go to the grocery store by myself. The car seat, and after that the moodiness of a toddler in a cart while making food purchase decisions (in the aisles... I do not recommend this method) was more than I wanted to take on any given weekday afternoon. And Yaya usually obliged, remembering her days as a feeder of small people, a keeper-of-the-pantry. And yeah, it was easier to shop without the baby, but ah, what a novice I was. Currently, I will take the opportunity to hit the store if I somehow have three or fewer kids on my watch (which isn't often) and count it a reprieve. That is, of course, if I somehow didn't make it Saturday morning.

The problem with hitting the store any of the times I was aiming for wasn't just about the tiny dictators I either had with me or arranged childcare for. The timing almost always set me up to encounter any number of grocery store infractions, including but not limited to the Aisle Crawl (What are you doing, meal-planning at the store? I mean, WHO DOES that?); the Aisle Sprawl (self-explanatory, I hope); the Determination to Be an Obstacle (okay, I'll give a smidge of grace and call this BEING PAINFULLY OBLIVIOUS TO OTHERS); and the biggest mystery, the Whole Family Out Grocery Shopping Together For Fun. (What IS that?) I'm not proud of being curmudgeonly about such petty things, and I hear more clearly now the whine in my voice when I describe them. But rather than accept these annoyances and, like, improve my inner self, I changed up my routine. This is not a bombshell, but it has affected my weekly routine in such a positive way.

6AM Saturday. Or earlier, if possible.

Although an early morning shopper must navigate shelf-stockers and floor polishers, she typically has the store to herself, save for a handful of other shoppers throughout the store. (Today I noticed four.) Derek is home with the kids, who will still be sleeping when I get home. I'm not sacrificing daytime hours with family, and when everyone awakes, the fridge and cupboards are stocked for the week. (Fridays I make my list of meals and grocery list for these meals plus pantry fill-ins, and clip online coupons.) As for sacrificing sleep, I've always found sleeping in to be horribly overrated. And who am I kidding? I haven't slept in the pre-kid sense of the word in nearly a decade. Why push for it now when this system works so well? 

It has come to this. 

A Letter to My Sick Self, Before Kids.

I know you think you're suffering.

And you are, you are. The aches are real, the fatigue is real, the struggle is real. But please, former self, O untethered, self-involved former self, ENJOY THIS TIME. 

Enjoy your cold, your flu, your general malaise. SIT ON THE COUCH. BY YOURSELF. ALL DAY.

Watch junk tv and Netflix. 

Get up only to re-microwave the heatpack and refill your teacup and use the bathroom. BY YOURSELF. 

Savor the ability to nurse your ailment, because there will come a day when your five miniature bosses will not allow you the luxury of a sick day. Yes, yes, everyone jokes about how "moms don't get sick days" alongside a disheveled cartoon housewife in her robe rolling her eyes. I'm telling you, you will look back on the vacations you took on your couch with a box of Kleenex and a box of Wheat Thins watching Judge Judy and MARVEL that such an opportunity was ever yours. 

It's true, young wife, the babies are sweet. And this is what you sign on for, and it's all worth it, and usually it feels like it's worth it. But aches and chills and fatigue don't go well with making dinner (they still have to eat,) nursing every three hours, breaking up the thousandth snow-day-induced squabble, and teaching fractions.

Oh that's right, you don't know about the homeschooling yet, do you?

Better hit that couch, you. Enjoy your cold.

So why start back up again?

Because I miss it. Because it's good exercise, like sketches in a sketchbook.

(I should really get out the sketchbook again, too...)

Because it's snowing. Again. Still. For the foreseeable future. Does the sun actually exist outside of my memory?

Because we're all a little sick and so we're at home. And we homeschool, so we're home. And the roads are barely visible for the snow, so...

Because a decision made out of fear is not the one I want to make. So what if I start back up and am inconsistent?

Because Instagram and Facebook only do so much for a compulsive journalist. And because in between math books and blowouts, nose wipes and butt wipes, games of chess and tests of will, there are ideas and ideals to be fleshed out and developed in a way that is somehow more accessible when a blinking cursor is involved.

Because the list of Important Things Requiring My Somewhat-Immediate Attention is long and never empty, but that's no reason to leave important items off of it.

The sounds coming from the cradle tell me the baby needs my Really-Immediate attention, so this is getting shelved for the moment.

Back in a moment.

Pulling the Oars

I do think about how it'll affect this afternoon, being up so early.

Lydia has been restless, crying out in her sleep for mommy, but without a physical need I can see to tend to. Judah's fever seems to have broken sometime in the three dark hours since I last laid a cheek to his forehead, and maybe it's relief that has me awake. 

It must be for a reason, though. 

Prayer time in the wee hours has an intimate feel to it, a blanket in the night without the listy need-stating of too many daytime prayers. The urgency is still there, but its gentler; it's appointment without the tension. He has something for me RIGHT HERE.

The sense, I've described it as paddling in a canoe. There are times on the river when the water's surface is glassy dark, but the paddler can feel a new current rushing underneath, a new direction tended toward without the oars slipping in. Fighting the current is just going to frustrate my (admittedly weak) planning, controlling tendencies, and likely leave me beached.

But where is He taking me?

It could be said that each person's life is in a constant state of flux, whether or not she recognizes it and whether or not she embraces it. God seems to be teaching me a phrase in this season: "There is no coasting." But AM I trainable?

(Photo credit Judah, with thanks for the reminder to wash my windows today.)

While wandering around the internet this morning, I read from a young woman walking through dark days of cancer and chemo that her emotions, if allowed to direct her days, always lead her astray: God's Word is the horse, and her emotions are the cart. God's Word HAS to lead, and her feelings MUST follow, by the nature of these too-often separate things. 2 Corinthians 10:5 struck me in the Amplified Bible translation: "Inasmuch as we refute arguments and reasonings and every proud lofty thing that sets itself up against the true knowledge of God, we lead every thought and purpose away, captive to the obedience of Christ..."

Yeah, not what the world teaches.

For a reason, though.

October Snow

It's partly because the development of an idea, written,  takes a long time. Or it takes me a long time, anyway. 

My current count for consecutive quiet minutes per week is, well, minimal. I attempted a brief sneak outside this afternoon to breathe some fresh air and clear some space around my thoughts while Wild Kratts occupied the kids, and was detected by Junebaby in 3 minutes flat.

Busted.

The inspiration is still there. A Facebook status or Instagram snap may help appease that insistent creative voice temporarily, but it doesn't last long. And the ideas burst at the seams.

Title beginnings: "Lydia-Speak Cheat Sheet." "Home Education: Two Years In." "A Better Mom." "How Not to Take a Family Photo." And most recently: "I'm Charging You, Boy, for Your Uneaten Tapioca Hot Dog Bun Crust." 

(It's been a weird month.)

Exposing more, even a little more, means more flaws are seen. More messy, more ugly. More grit that's in danger of NOT being folded into the cutesy sins of the "imperfect mama club."

The seasons are changing, summer and winter wrestling for dominance neither will achieve.

And here we are.