Vote

Don't take your right to vote for granted. 

Men fought. 

Women fought. 

We vote.

Forever

I knew we'd have challenges. I knew this first year of homeschooling would require patience, flexibility, respect, and a whole lot of 'breaks.' I knew I'd have some days with Ella wanting to be at school, and some days with Calum wanting to be at home (he is continuing in his Montessori program for his kindergarten year.) I must have said 1,502,498,216 times to my friends and family - 'This year is a learning year. My only expectation & hope is to want to do it again next year.' This mantra still holds true but so does another...homeschooling has been emotional, confronting, demanding, spiritual, and singly, the most difficult yet gratifying thing I've ever done so far....

I won't bore you with the standard emotions that may encompass our day. As anyone might imagine, there is joy, and fun, and frustration, and exhaustion, and silliness, and creativity. All of these fit the bill. And all of them I embrace, even plan for, throughout our days. However, there are deeper lessons I hadn't predicted, much less planned for, and perhaps even denied by virtue of being green at this. What will I always remember about these first few months? The changing dynamic between my children.

Homeschool has changed the game between my kids and in ways I hadn't even imagined. Hindsight is 20/20 though - I should have seen it coming. But this is the paradox of raising children...some of the most beautiful, breathtaking lessons are also the most painful. The ones that sting a little, or alot! The lessons of life that actually DO keep me awake at night. That mix of 'What have I done? And what do I do now? But wait, how would I have known...' 

My oldest children, Ella & Calum, have always been each others best friends. She has protected him since the day they met. Five years ago in that hospital room, when he was crying and she was stroking his head, I saw it in her eyes. He was hers, and she his. Ella rarely says 'Calum.' She has called him 'Buddy' since those early days. And Calum has called Ella 'Eye' since he started to talk. I don't think he could actually pronounce her name and it came out as 'Eye.' I love to listen to them playing - these pet names interchanged with their actual given names. All the children have their own dynamic between the four. And they all have quiet moments among them, when two pair off and go play something together. But up until recently it has usually boiled down to Ella & Calum - Oliver & Drew. And then we changed their rooms...

Late in the Summer, just a few weeks before school, Adam & I finally made the plunge and split the twins and divided the children's rooms by gender. Girls together - boys together. I was sure the girls would have a harder transition. Their male counterparts definitely compensated for emotions of each girl and kept things in balance. I was totally floored when, that very first night of separation, it was tears from the boys that I was wiping dry. They missed their girls. It took a few nights, and alot of encouragement, and a few promises for male-specific toys (I wasn't totally sure what I was promising to be honest) to get things settled. I saw it as an opportunity for the boys to become closer. Calum was RIPE for the big-brother role. After just a few nights, the transition was made and the kids were comfortable and happy with their new roommates.And then we started school...

Homeschooling really isn't to blame. And neither is the Montessori setting. Nothing is really a 'problem.' It's just a shift. Ella is home now with the twins and the three of them have become closer. Ella and Oliver pair off quite often. Calum loves school and rarely asks to stay home. He is excited to see everyone at the end of his day and is often full of energy and motivation. HE is the one with all the school stories this year. And HE gets to tell them without interruption! This is a new role for him. Calum has always competed for 'air time' with Ella. She likes to talk and he's male so...you do the math. 

We were driving off to school one morning and Ella was talking about gymnastics (we have enrolled her in a gymnastics class designed for homeschooling children - meaning, the class is scheduled during the week, during school hours.) Calum got super-excited and said that he wanted to do gymnastics too. Enter painful parenting moment.....Ella told him that she didn't want him to do gymnastics with her. 'I don't want you there, buddy.' Calum goes silent, feelings hurt. I stop breathing, heartbroken. Ella is talking in nothing short of a whisper. I can't believe she said it. For the first time ever, she is saying No to having him as her wing-man.And she's articulating her case very well - painfully clear.

Reliving this moment has provided a different perspective - she is maturing! Ella is growing in confidence, and is excited to explore places and new things - on her own. This is TRIUMPHANT, really, compared to where we were a year ago when she wouldn't even go to Home Depot with her Daddy. She is learning to work through her anxieties and go into a group setting with confidence. On the other hand, I have a son - a middle child, in fact - that is also maturing. Calum is succeeding in his new role of Kindergartner at school. He loves coming home to his family and sharing his day. The time apart from his sister is good for him, and he returns to their relationship with excitement and patience. But he misses her. Calum misses Ella - as much as he has been her wing-man, she has been his anchor as well. However, Ella is moving on in a way. She has stemmed new relationships with her younger siblings. She is yearning for additional friendships outside of our closely-knitted family. The latter may have less to do with homeschooling and more to do with age. Whichever the catalyst, the dynamic between Ella & Calum is changing. And, at times, it's making my heart hurt and my breath escape me. I wasn't ready.

So - when people ask, 'What's the hardest part about homeschooling?' my answer is usually dependent on how much time I have to talk, and how 'close to the bone' my heart can go. The hardest part, by far, is moving through these changes in relationships. We are all going through them. And if I'm lucky, I can pause in the moment to learn from them. But this one, this change between brother and sister, oh...this one confronts me. It's challenging the trust I have in myself, in believing that we are our right path. In their best interests, I've been forced to let go, to shore up, to encourage honesty and conversation between them, and to realize that they are both right in their feelings - and I am the mom, and despite the title, I can't always make things 'right' for each of them, at the same time. If I'm lucky, I will forever be the sounding-board for these two. And if I'm lucky, I can forever be the one to make them both feel loved, understood, celebrated, heard, and respected. But sometimes, what is best for one, will painfully impact another, and because we're family,  we will just have to work through the process.
 
Just this past week we took the older kids kayaking. As much as this was a treat for Adam & me (I haven't been on the water since pregnant with Ella,) I relished more in the kids' rediscovery of their closeness. Had I not been privy to the changing tides inside our home, I may have missed the chance to watch closely their faces, and listen intently to their voices, for love between them was most evident.

The Week in Review

I don't always have the time to sit and write...but I do usually have the time to take enough pictures to fill a book. Here are a few of my favorites from this past week.

Peace

Ella spending a homeschooling field trip on the Potomac River.

My hidden truth -- the state of my kitchen most days.

The start to some beautiful spatter-paint creations.

Ella's first cupcake recipe - Marshmallow Madness. Expect to see her on a baking show in another 20 years.

Natural learning at its finest.

We welcomed a new cousin on Thursday. This is my altar for such things.

An important and overdue day of 'reconnection' for these two. About to explore the creek via kayak!

She looks both grown-up and so young in this picture.

Happy & Confident.

I was the only one to actually get a fish. A big score for the mom who paddles slow and gets everyone wet.

Yes! He IS sitting on a rock in the middle of the Potomac. Sound judgement was trumped by carpe diem.

My favorite part

Handmade bobbins for Ella's sewing kit

What is my favorite part of the 'unschooling/homeschooling/interest-led' life? Getting to just say yes, in the interest of learning.

Here are a few pictures to describe what we've said 'yes' to today.

Shanty-town

And it's my belief, the more I say yes, the easier the no's will be. I'm building confident, self-assured children that believe in themselves. If I said no to all their ideas, wouldn't this teach them that their ideas aren't any good?! Saying yes to painting, or creating, or constructing is very, very different than saying yes to poor behavior, disrespectful actions, or material 'wants.' 

How do you view the word 'yes' in your house? Is it 'yes' when it meets your needs AND the kids' needs? How many yes's are allowed that completely trump your need for cleanliness, organization, &/or control?

It's a 'yes' kind of mood over here.

Handpainted tree for our family tree project

Creative painting before lunch

The start to some cookies

The stacking of mattresses - I have no idea why

#photoadayjuly

For the last few months I've been 'participating' in a 'photo a day' challenge. It's a personal challenge but it originated from another blog and a list of topics for each day of the month. It's been a fun and creative way for me to document my life through a frame of reference given through a list of topics. One idea for each day.I take a picture and then upload it to the crafty app 'Instagram.'

I've taken a few of my very favorite pictures by looking at my life through these pre-determined themes. This picture was taken with the theme 'bathroom' in mind...I took a picture of a grouping of plants out in our backyard. How does this relate to a bathroom? Any bathroom? Well sometimes, uhhh a lot of times, it's just easier for these four nature kids to pee on a plant. For the neighbors that care, we have some good barrier trees giving us privacy. For the neighbors that don't, their kids know that routine. So...when the topic of 'bathroom' came up on the 'picture a day' challenge, I knew right where to go, pun intended.

This is another favorite of mine. The topic was 'shadow.' I have an affinity for trees, especially 'tree of life' images. Years ago we received a beautiful metal tree that hangs on our back patio. I'm not sure how I came to the idea of photographing it as my 'shadow' picture but I did. The sun was coming in our front door so perfectly. I just propped-up the sculptured tree and took the shot. Teh tree shadow against the hardwood floor - yum. I just love this picture.

Some pictures can be very meaningful. Actually, it's what I find 'challenging' about this kind of challenge...taking a topic and transforming it into something deeply meaningful. A picture that will ignite memories and emotion. Or, perhaps, a picture that is a statement. A statement or icon that encapsulates a philosophy that I/we live by. This next picture is a statement about our food philosophy. If I could have taken a picture of our farmers market, I would have combined the two. It's taken our family about three years to make this change from box-store foods to locally produced. We eat approximately 80-85% locally grown. Our meats, milk & eggs come from a local farm. Our seasonal fruits come from a local farm. Our seasonal vegetables come from our backyard. There is meaning and purpose in our choices for food. I love this picture because it answered the topic 'where you shop.'

And isn't 'meaning', and finding it, what life's all about? I try to find it in everything - good and bad. When I was terribly sick for four days, barely making it out of bed for longer than an hour, I reflected back and thought...'How brilliant! This illness gave me time, permission actually, to sit and color quietly with the kids for hours on end. It gave me an opportunity to ask for what I needed, and then receive care & compassion from my husband...without the guilt a young mother can feel when she's asking others for help.' Meaning is everywhere, just waiting to be interpreted. And it's the interpretation that can grow us or kill us. I could have been pissed about getting sick. It was the first long weekend we've had with Adam in months. He had four days off in a row and I was sick for each one of them. And it was Fathers Day, no less. We missed a party. We missed a nature hike. I missed playing in the pool. But for all these misses I gained some perspective - coloring and laughing are a priority, clean laundry is not. Being a role model for my kids about of healthy self-care is a priority, playing martyr and complaining about it is not. I don't feed a cold and starve a fever - I don't even know what the hell does this means? You follow your body and if it's hungry, you eat. If not, you don't. I lived off of watermelon and fresh cherries for four days. And hot water with a little lemon.

Meaning is everywhere. It's one of my most favorite internal exercises - finding meaning. It's difficult to do sometimes, especially when there is tragedy. And I consider my life void of many tragedies so perhaps this is why I have an easier time coming to meaningful conclusions. Or perhaps the void is due to my perspective...I see few things as tragedies; is this why I haven't experienced many? There are opportunities for growth and learning in every experience. Even the miserable ones. So, in my moments of despair &/or negative thinking - in turn, destructive thinking - I dig deep and see how different the composition of my life would be without said experience. Life is a living, breathing, force to be reckoned with - when I fight it, I become tired & exhausted. I do better surrendering to the journey. If I hold on too tight, my hands just end up bruised and blistered.

Ella & her wood-polishing work

I'd like to continue sharing some of photo challenges with you. In case you are curious about it for yourself, I follow the blog fatmumslim and she publishes the 'photoaday' challenges each month. Maybe it'll spark your creative side. In the meantime, here are two pictures from yesterday - topic was 'work.' the kids did a lot of 'work' yesterday.

Oliver doing silver-polishing

The Creepy Crawlies

It's our first official week of summer! I'm in my element in the summer....no schedule, no lunches to pack (unless it's a cooler for all of us.) I love summer - the pace, the heat, the boredom. Yes, even the boredom. In this fast-paced world we live in, where children are as over-scheduled and stressed-out as adults, I find boredom to be a sign of accomplishment. Ella starts most mornings with the questions, 'Do we have a plan today?' I enjoy the feeling of saying no. 'Nope. No plan. We'll just see what the day brings us.' Sometimes this is an acceptable answer, and sometimes not.

Don't worry. The kids have things to do. Have you seen our backyard? It's a mecca of kid-friendly things...a firepit, a playground, a sandbox, a fairy-house garden, an actual garden - with food, a backporch, a zip-line, a driveway for bikes and chalk. And the pool. Can't forget the POOL! (though I do find it amusing that we had a week of hot weather, just prior to the end of school, but now we're in the upper-60s/lower-70s.) I keep promising the return of heat. It will come, just be patient.

But boredom is the catalyst for many things...and at this age, when messes and boredom-driven mistakes are minor, it usually means imaginations can kick into high-gear. Better yet, boredom can mean it's time to learn! For those who haven't heard, we will be homeschooling next year. Calum will return to Montessori for his Kindergarten year (such an important year!), while Ella & I navigate our way through the subjects. I 'declare' her as a homeschooler in just a few months, but we've been teaching & learning at home all year. Many friends and family ask, 'When will you 'officially' begin homeschooling? When will you start, officially?' I tend to smile at this question -- I remember asking it of my friends, and now realize why they also smiled. 'Well. I guess I officially started homeschooling on August 1st, 2005, and haven't really stopped since.' You see, homeschooling, at least the way we plan on doing it, is just an extension of what we already do. My kids are home with me, and this means two things...1) my house is usually a mess, and 2) I get to encourage & support their learning.
This month, June, is BUG month. Everything bugs. We have bug books. We have a bug calendar, thanks to Carisa over at 1+1+1=1. We have YouTube and all its Bug-glory. We have the State Arboretum near us, along with a host of nature trails . We have monarch caterpillars headed our way from Insect Lore. I have 'parts of a bug' activities and 'life-cycle' work, galore! But best of all...we have a backyard, and four kids that like to talk about bugs.
 Here's how this whole 'teaching at home' thing works for us. Here's how it plays out in our day. Most days, I try to have an 'invitation to play' activity. An 'invitation to play' is simply something I've planned and set-up for the kids to do. Planning can take days...or 7 seconds. Just all depends on my mood, their mood, and the amount of caffeine coursing through my veins.

Our first Bug'esque activity was to make melted crayon butterflies. We started by peeling and compiling a bunch of old crayons. Interestingly, Oliver is the only one who saw this part of the project all the way through. He has some staying-power, I tell ya. We see it more and more everyday. Give him a job and he'll do it like no-bodies business. The rest of the crew took some time sorting, peeling, and smashing the crayons but after about 15-minutes, they had moved on. 'Tis fine. Oliver and I spent some extra time together learning our colors (age-appropriate learning opportunity #1.) And I got an extra turn with the rolling pin beating the hell out of a plastic bag full of crayon bits (HUGE stress-reliever, all in the name of kids craft!) After some lessons on patience, turn-taking, color-mixing, thermal energy, and safety (age-appropriate learning opportunities #2, 3, 4, 5, & 6) - we had these little beauties to hang in our kitchen.

An hour or so following our crayon-melting excitement, Oliver and Adam found a Cicada nymph in the backyard. Adam must have dug it up while doing some yard-work and Ollie, always on the lookout for something to impress the older brother, saw the baby bug. This little creature provided me with two hours, TWO HOURS, of  uninterrupted & focused learning, for all of us. Here's how it went down....Bug discovered. Bug book retrieved. Cicada nymph identified. Description of said bug, read. Questions emerge. Computer booted. Life-cycle information gathered. Cicada-video watched - http://youtu.be/tjLiWy2nT7U. Questions emerge. Expansion of subject continues. Multiple bug videos observed. Computer error occurs (Calum hit the wrong button.) BAM! Now we're on to awesome-cool science experiments. Another 45-minutes passes and the kids now have me trying to find a dry-ice resource so we can do a handful of these science experiments. I got saved by a birthday party...otherwise, I would have been foraging for dry-ice

Daddy couldn't resist...

We had great weather over the weekend and on Sunday, we got out of the house and onto a trail. On the way there, I asked the kids what kind of creatures we might see on the trail...turtles, bees, butterflies, wombats, rattlesnakes, and cougars all topped the list. They were most excited for the creek, which was our eat-drink-and be merry point. We'd eat there, and drink there, and probably get a little muddy there. Turns out, I was right.

Being ever so careful in keeping her skirt dry.

Mud

From our adventure to the creek, we now have a list of little creatures that we identified. This week, I will find pictures of those little bugs, print and laminate them, add some written labels and Calum can practice his letters & sounds (age-appropriate learning activity #7,) and Ella can practice alphabetizing them (#8) and perhaps write a story about our adventure. It's time to introduce some writing concepts to her so we will explore the 'beginning, middle, and end' of our narrative (#9.)

The setup

 And this brings us to yesterday and today. Yesterday's invitation to play was to make a bug using re-purposed egg cartons, googly eyes, glue, paint, and pipe-cleaners. Providing very little direction and hoping for some cool creations, I watched as each child explored these materials. Ollie and Drew were first and Calum waited until three minutes before bedtime. Ella, as usual, learned from the mistakes of the twins (too much paint takes a VERY long time to dry,- #10) but wanted her bug all but completed before Calum's bug....nothing like a healthy dose of sibling rivalry.

This was the scene halfway through...

You'll have to wait until tomorrow to see the four finished bugs. We have some interesting leg positions, colors, and eye-amounts. I suspect the painting isn't over and that we'll need some additional embellishments (glitter, stickers, spiny things) as these little things take shape.

And last night, before bed, I created a butterfly for our learning wall (the big wall in our office that seems to be a great place for visual learning.) I plan to add an ant and a spider but for now, the butterfly is our start. I labeled this pretty little thing (learning opportunity #11) and made labels for Ella. Today, when she is looking to do some quiet, challenging work, she can alphabetize the labels and practice writing them in her journal (#12 & 13.) I wrote the parts of a butterfly in Calum's handwriting book and he can practice his penmanship as well (#14.) I will also spend some time with him today reviewing the letter sounds on our wall (#15.) He'll be reading in no time...
 Our morning hours today will be filled with a host of learning opportunities...math, science, language, health, manners, etc. We're headed in for some annual check-ups --- all four at the doctors office, in a room fit for two. This should be interesting... 

Shall we dance?

A quick post this morning. Our family is settling in to that lazy schedule of a long, summer weekend. Too bad it's the last day of said weekend. Regardless, the next nine hours will be a slow dance between us and summer - a prelude for the weeks to come. So, with the sound of our neighborhood dogs barking their arguments, let the screeching from the pool, ice melting in the wide-mouth Ball jar, Popsicles dripping down elbows, music floating out from the house, hazy, lazy days of summer begin.