Moments of a Mom

Ciaran said to me "Sometimes I feel like something is missing and then I climb in your lap and snuggle and nothing is missing anymore"  then he climbed into my lap and stayed there for over an hour.  He asked to stay up late next to me reading and feel asleep with his head in my lap.  What more beautiful moment could I want with my 9 year old son?

Sirah has been dressing up a lot with the neighbors and has entered her  English queen accent phase.  I remember when Maria was in this stage too.  Funny how they both ended up there.  She asked me just to lay with her last night until she feel asleep because it is calming and comforting to her.  She has taken to telling me I am her queen and how beautiful I am.  She has been especially noticing my hair and asking to braid it or play with it.

Maria has a birthday coming up and is in the pushing boundaries stage but still she and I had a several hour long heart to heart one morning before anyone else was up.  Sitting on the couch in the living room and then in her bed talking on all sorts of topics and hopefully setting groundwork for these kinds of conversations all through the teenage years I thought about how much I am still enjoying our changing relationship.  Time with me, especially undivided time is still very important to her.  While I can no longer simply touch her and make the crying stop like when she was a baby I know that being there for her is the most comforting thing I can give her now.

"Your presence is soothing" - yes it is a Star Wars quote but one I often here from Serona.  He just wants me around in the same room and near to him even when he is playing a video game or reading a book, engaged in a solo hobby he says it is better if I am just there with him.

It is good to be wanted so by so many people.  I used to find it demanding and a bit draining, like everyone wants something all the time.  Now though I look at it differently.  I really am thankful they all want me around so much and that I really make a difference in their lives as they do in mine.  I suppose it is easier now that no one needs to nurse or have their diapers changed and they can entertain themselves on their own when needed.  Still it is if something in me switched and I realized not everyone has this sort of relationship with their spouse and kids and it is something I love about who we are.  I realize the time is fleeting and maybe that makes it easier to embrace.

This weekend there were moments when everyone needed something and it felt like all I was doing was pouring out.  Even Serona commmented on it and complimented me on it and I thought these are the moments that make up being a wife and mother and I am so very thankful for them.  Too many moments to share but just a glimpse into my moments.  Enjoy yours today.

Summer Moments to Remember

 We had a great family 4th of July weekend.  Spending lots of time with neighbors, friends, and our family.  We went to a carnival, launched water balloons at each other with a catapult, took the kids to their first live concert and dance, saw the parade, shot off and watched many fireworks, swam, played badminton in a pouring rainstorm, played Star Wars Risk, enjoyed video games, watched movies and just really enjoyed being together as a family.

This year I realized how soon it will come that our kids will want to start splitting up and doing things more with their friends then with us and I think that made this weekend even more special to us.  Taking that time together while the kids still really want to be with us and enjoy our time together as a family.  Watching the sparkle in my kids eyes as they watch the fireworks display, even the almost 11 year old.  Watching our 6 year old up on dad's shoulders for another year or two. It really is precious and special time together and I am so thankful we have had so much of it.

As I watched my kids swim in the pool at a friends house, use sparklers and snaps I was reminded of being their age myself and spending the 4th with cousins and family friends doing the very same things.  A few days ago we took the kids to catch fireflies in a nearby field and I was brought back to countless nights in my own childhood doing the same.  Having water gun fights with my kids I think how I wish I had a super soaker instead of a small squirt gun that needed to be continually refilled, still it is the same.  Watching them ride their bikes and continually want a bigger boundary reminds me of my own days bike riding through my neighborhood.  Having a baseball catch with my son reminds me of having the same with my dad.

There are differences to be sure - my daughter loves playing dolls with the neighbors far more than I recall doing.  My son builds bows and arrows and tree forts and has a love for wildlife I don't recall having at his age.  We don't live near an ocean but have lakes surrounding us every few miles.  Video games seem to be more pervasive and more of a driving factor for my kids and their friends than they were for me at these ages. I also remember playing far more board games then they seem to enjoy despite our continual efforts.

Still so much of summer seems universal to me despite generations.  There are small changes, different rules, different neighborhoods and improved technology to be sure but still so much of it repeats itself.  I wonder if that is because we are sharing our experiences with our kids or if there is just something about summer and kids that leads to the same things occuring over and over again.

I love summer time and the freedoms that come with it.  I love having the privelage and freedom to be home with my kids to enjoy these days.  I love that right now my job is going to the lake, pool, park, arboretum, zoo, ball fields, and playing around the yard.  Honestly who could ask for a better job or work environment.  Hope you are enjoying your summer.

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One of my favorite parts of summer is I get to say yes more.  Mom can I go out to play?  Yes.  Mom can I have a friend over?  Yes.  Mom can I go make bows and arrows today?  Yes.  Mom can we go to the pool?  Yes.  Mom can I bike ride?  Yes.  All the things I feel like I have to say no to I tend to say yes to in the summer.  That is a great feeling for both me and them.

However there tends to be a pattern with this. After they discover I am saying yes more they immediately test the boundaries of my willingness.  Today upon waking "Mom can I play Wii all day?  Mom can I watch a movie (that they know they are not allowed to yet)?  Mom can I have ice cream now?  Mom can I have pretzels for breakfast?"  It's almost like they need to still hear me say no and realize there still are boundaries even if they are fairly loose for my typical standards.  More likely they just want to see what they can truly get out of me and away with.

We will find our new balance fairly quickly.  They will settle into our summer routine and I will continue to say yes and they will continue to push the boundaries to the limit .  They will push until they realize there really is a firm limit at the other end.  Eventually they will be happy with the extra latitude they are receiving because it is summer.

For now I feel like the picture above and I am enjoying being able to say yes to them and reward them after a long but successful school year.

Unexpected Road

I had our summer all mapped out.  I was excited and we had plans and a way to follow through on them.  I should have known better and known life is full of curve balls and unexpected turns.

Last Friday the kids and I headed out for the first of many planned bike rides.  A nice bike ride to and from the pool a day filled with swimming, a little exercise, a lot of sun.

On our bike ride there Ciaran kept getting off his bike just not wanting to ride anymore. He is usually my most amenable rider the one I have to reign in from riding to far ahead of the rest of us.   I was feeling frustrated as we had plans and were meeting people at the pool and were already running late.  He told me had sudden growing pains and after the second stop I offered to turn around and go home, we probably should have.

Not sure if his Irish stubborn side or his desire to swim won out in the end but he decided he wanted to keep going forward.  We got to the pool and played with our friends for just a bit before they had to leave, it was nice to see there and be with them.  When they left the kids went swimming and I laid on the chair in the sunshine with my book and thought, this is a perfect way to spend summer just like this.  Get some bike exercise, relax on the pool deck, the kids can all swim themselves and I can jump in for some laps and to cool off.  It felt like summer and was lovely.

We headed home and on our bike ride home Maria took a spill at the bottom of the hill and in just that brief moment the summer changed.  We will still have a great summer, it will still be fun and filled with interesting things but it will be different now.  Maria tore a ligament in her knee in that spill and will have a long road to recovery.  There will not be many family bike rides and our time at the pool will look different over the next few weeks but it will come.

So it is time to slow down and just be.  Time to just hang out at home and have friends over to play.  Time to read together, play board games, work on puzzles, take up a new handwork hobby.  Time to swing in the hammock, have bonfires and enjoy the home we have built together.  In a few weeks or months when the injury is fully healed then it can be the time for other things.  Now seems to be the time to just be here and just be, enjoying the summer this way.  Enjoying Unexpected Road.

Reading

I love reading and always have for as long as I can remember.  I read a lot as a child and then straight through the rest of my life. I visited far off place, made friends and began to dream big dreams all on the pages of those books.  I wanted to pass not just an ability but also a love of reading on to my children.  So I read to them a lot and I taught them to read and when they could read I required them to read a lot.  

In general the rule in our house is an hour a day from second grade on, often they read more, sometimes they read less.  That is a year round rule for us, during school and summer.  During the school year that hour a day is a book or books of their choice.  For summertime reading I choose the books or at least the subject they read for that hour.  They are free to read books of their choice beyond that hour and often they will if they are interested enough in something.  Screen time (video games, televesion, computer time) is directly tied to the amount of time they read.  They can not have any until they have read for at least an hour and then after that they can only receive the amount of screen time equal to the amount of time they have read for the day. 

This summer Maria is reading biography's of her choice for her assigned reading time.  I took her to the library yesterday and she chose a dozen biography's from the children's section, with her rule being it has to be about someone you have not learned or do not know much about yet.  Her choices so far have been interesting, it will be fun to see what the summer brings.  I am also encouraging her to read the entire Redwall series though she has not yet developed a love for it. 

Ciaran is reading two series to start the summer - The Wizard of Oz by Frank L Baum (14 books) and The Indian in the Cupboard series by Lynne Reid Banks (5 books).  If he gets through those we will finish up the Great Illustrated Classics series books he has not finished.  He is also enjoying rereading the Rick Riordan books and I think he will begin reading Ridley Pearson multiple series for fun on his own. 

Sirah has the most freedom in book choices as she can choose anything at her reading level and she still only need to read around 30 minutes each day.  I try to read aloud to her for atleast a half hour as well to bring her up to an hour a day. 

I am finishing compiling their school year book lists.  I keep track of all the books they read through the school year and then post the lists here.  Look for them some time this month. 

School's Out for Summer

Today is the last day of official school for us.  Most of our subjects will wrap up today and we begin summer vacation next week after their yearly standardized test.  My 9 year old son asked if he can play Guitar Hero today so he can sing "School's Out" which yes is by Alice Cooper.

I am looking forward to wrapping up this year and taking a break as much as the kids are.  We will not be completely "free" of school as my son constantly reminds me.  I make them do daily math reviews and read an hour a day.  Two of them are bringing a subject they did not finish yet into the summer with them until they are done but overall it will be nice to have a break.

We have some summer projects lined up and some vacations planned, some baseball to wrap up and plenty of free time at the pool and nature preserves calling out to us.  The early heat in Minnesota has made us a bit restless and ready to be done earlier this year but I am proud of all of us to making it through another school year and finishing out strong.  This last month has seen each of us having our days of "can't we just be done yet?"

We are finishing up our 6th year of homeschooling, sometimes it feels like it has been much longer and sometimes it seems it has flown by.  Next year I will have a middle schooler as we adjust to life with a 6th, 4th and 2nd grader. I am still glad we are homeschooling even with its challenges and ups and downs.  I am also really glad we take a summer vacation and relax just a little bit.  I am actually most looking forward to just being mom for a little while.

One of the hardest things for me to balance and my kids to understand is the difference between mom and teacher.  Mom is always on your side, mom always thinks you do great work, mom is always proud of your writing, your skills and your progress.  Your teacher wants to be but your teacher can not always appear to be.  Your teacher needs to teach and help grow you and offer constructive criticism, your teacher can not always seem to be your biggest fan.  It is very hard for my kids to understand how I play both roles in their lives and to see and feel just the supportive loving mom part.  Summer is an important part of that for us.  So here is to just being mom for a few months! Enjoy your summer, I know we will.

Creative Writing Story Starters

Here are some great creative writing assignments, we have been using them here on a weekly basis and the stories my kids are writing have been very interesting.

Story Starters

Summer Projects

"I'm bored"
"I have have nothing to do"
"There's nothing to play with"
"Entertain me"
"No one is home to play"

The list goes on and on of the many ways my children will soon be asking me to be their entertainment committee during the summer.  I used to have a list of ideas for them to choose from this summer though I think I will have a different strategy now that they are getting older and have each other.

I may be in a minority here but I think it is good for my kids to struggle through feeling bored and find a solution for themselves with the things we have on hand.  Just as necessity is the mother of creativity I believe boredom is also the mother of creativity.  Sometimes my kids very best ideas come when they just finished telling me they had nothing to do and no friends to play with.  We have a double decker hammock inside a tree fort they created as the most recent proof.

Lately I have taken to answering that question with the offer of chores and they almost immediately remember or discover something they could do.  It is actually a pretty effective strategy for my kids and it forces them to be creative.  If they come back again in a short amount of time I will make them do chores and after a few of those reminders and several times of  follow through on actual chores, they pretty much stopped expecting me to figure it out for them and suddenly found a way to not be bored.

In addition during the summer we assign certain projects for those down times and if they really are at loose ends we will encourage them to work on their independent projects.  This summer they are working on photography, nature sketching , leather working, sewing, knitting, and woodworking.  In addition they have their summer reading and math requirements.  My job is to make sure they have the supplies on hand for those projects and the initial direction and instruction they need then to set them to the tasks.  The "I'm bored" moments are a perfect opportunity for that.  Chores are my follow up.  It rarely gets beyond those.

Don't get me wrong we will do a lot together as a family during the summer days and they will have friends here often and be visiting their friends, beaches, pools, park etc plenty.  Still for children it never seems to be enough and inevitably the "I have nothing to do" moments hit with more regularity in the summer.  This year I am prepared to head that off right from the get go.  I am guessing it will be a fairly creative and inventive summer, otherwise I will have a very clean home.  Either way I will put their boredom to good use.

Last Week of School

The end is in sight.  We are going to finish school up this week one way or another.  The week may not be the most "fun" school week we have but it is time to be done so we don't have to worry about it anymore.  No field trips, only outside activities this week are piano recital, baseball and book club.

Hopefully everyone can see the light at the end of the tunnel and buckle down to finish their work.  Sometimes the end seems harder than the beginning.  This year our annual testing is scheduled on June 1st so I have made that our official last day of school and June 2nd the beginning of summer.  This is the longest we have continued school and I think next year the kids will be more motivated to stay on track in the winter to finish up a bit earlier in the spring in order to enjoy the beautiful relatively bug free month of May in Minnesota.  Here's to one more week.

Kids in Nature

Sometimes I think ahead and wonder what my kids are going to remember about their childhood with me.  I hope this picture comes to their mind because we certainly spend enough time doing things that look just like this.  One thing I am fairly consistent about is getting them out in nature: for hikes, exploration, nature study, art sketching, arboretum and nature center visits, geocaching, just being outside in creation.

Today I was thinking about this as I led a group of 8 kids, my kids and some of their friends through a nearby pond area we love and frequent.  My kids and their friends have named different areas of the pond.  Names like Devils Haunt, Witches Pass, Turtle Cove, Frog Swallow and others I can't think of.  They run around and and talk about where they want to go next.  They build forts, climb trees, big dirt piles they call mountains and run through deer trails.  They catch frogs, turtles and snakes and watch tadpoles grow into frogs they will later catch.  They alternate between being loud and quiet, so as to not scare away the animals, from running fast to walking super slow and taking it all in.  They negotiate with each other over where they will head next and how much time they will spend there.  They want to spend all day there and I believe my son would if he was allowed to.  One day I think I am just going to say we can spend as long as they want but I need to go ready to spend an entire day there, bringing provisions for us all.

This part of parenting comes easily to me.  I like being in nature myself and I love being in nature with other kids.  I love watching kids explore, learn and just have fun outdoors.  I like watching them gain independence and some freedom within boundaries, discover they can do things they did not think they could before and challenge one another to push just a bit harder.  I also love the quiet calm when they watch a turtle on a log, a bird in flight or take time to sketch a beautiful flower.  It makes me think this is what being a kid is about.  It is kid in fullness to me in some ways.

My kids don't really have a choice but to at least put up with being out in nature often as they have been forced to since they were infants really.  I think we took each of them camping before they were one.  Though I must admit it is much nicer to camp with older kids than it was with toddlers.  I think being outdoors so much has given them an appreciation for it and a desire to be there.  My son is hard wired to need it so his sisters would have to put up with it one way or another.  Thankful they like it as much and can be found holding the turtles, frogs and yes even snakes.  They still hold out from spiders and bugs though - there is some girly girl in them.

During the school year I remind myself every once in awhile to throw everyone in the car and just get outside and suddenly we are all a bit nicer to each other.  The great outdoors is a wonderful place to get a bit of space and breathing room from each other even if we are all still in the same general area and in view of each other, it still feels freeing and spacious in a way being in the house simply does not.

I know our nature walks, our nearby pond, arboretum and nature center will be a large part of my memories of their childhood when they grow up and move out.  I hope it leaves positive impressions in their minds as well.  Of course as I write this they are indoors playing Band Hero on Wii and singing together.  I can live with both of those things being part of their childhood memories.  Wii has its place in our home too.

Volume of Homeschooling

As I type this I am overwhelmed by the loud volume in my home school.  When we began our journey I envisioned reading quietly together on the couch or sitting around a table working on books.  I knew we would do field trips and hands on projects and I was all for non traditional school experiences which I expected to have varying volumes.  What I did not expect is the cacophony of sounds that would fill our day.

I did not expect the continual interruptions of each other and the delicate dance we do of who I teach when and working on independent subjects while I am working with another child.  I did not expect the kids to yell over each other to be heard.  I did not expect one to cover her eyes and yell "You are too loud, my ears are sensitive" and go running off into her room.  I did not expect that for mother's day I would ask for and actually want a pair of earplugs and one of my favorite possessions would be a pair of noise reducing headphones.  This gets filed in the unexpected moments of homeschooling.

It is not that I have no control over my kids or they can not observe silence, it is just that it is rare and nearly impossible to attain for any length of time while actually schooling my children.  We have found benefit at this time of year to splitting up into seperate rooms and enforced outdoor times.  Returning to the days of reminding my kids of the difference between an indoor voice and an outdoor one, like when they were toddlers.

At the end of the day I have found the sound of silence or of my favorite music to be what I crave the most.  As I sit down to read my book and not answer anyone's questions, teach anyone anything or just answer to the word mom one more moment of my day, I am thankful for the moments away from the loudness of school.

Ready to Be Done

It is now May and I am very ready to be done.  The kids are as well and this year for the first time ever in our homeschooling we will not be finished up during the first two weeks of May.  We simply took too much time in the beginning and middle off.  We have neighbors who decided to homeschool this year and we did year round sports for the first time as well as having three full time students for the first time.  So we will continue through the month of May.  We are down to half days so it is not so bad but we are all ready to be done, which makes focus a problem for everyone involved.  I think everyone is a bit crabby with each other too and ready to be outside more.

We have tried a few days of outdoor schooling but sometimes it is harder to focus and keep going as we are easily distracted by all the interesting things going on in nature all around us.  These next few weeks will be challenging for us all but the promise of freedom to come in just a few more weeks will keep us all on task.  I know there is a light at the end of the tunnel but right about now I am not feeling or seeing it.

In just a few months I will be longing for the order and structure that school brings our days and lives.  Today however I am longing for a day where I don't feel the desire to duct tape my kids to their seats so I might hold their attention for more than a few moments at a time and we could just buckle down and finish off these lessons and books.  Come on summer you are almost here.

Touching Minds

For the last five years our family has been part of the same homeschool cooperative.  This is one of my kids favorite parts of being home schooled.  They love their friends there, they enjoy the teachers and they enjoy the variety of classes being taught.  I have enjoyed the opportunity to work with some other students teaching topics I love.  Some of these students I have had for multiple years. As I sat at a table yesterday across from some teenagers that I have now taught since they were 11 and 12 years old along with a new crop of students I am getting to know I thought about how much I enjoy spending time with these kids.

For a few short moments we get to touch minds about topics that are interesting to them and engage in conversation that I hope challenges them and helps them to grow and think about things.  One of my favorite parts of teaching anyone is when you are able to witness those light bulb moments, when it all clicks together in the mind of a person and you can see it on their face.  When you watch someone have the realization that they knew something or truly understand something, that is a beautiful moment.  I have been blessed by so many of those moments through this cooperative.  I have had the blessing of interacting with some of these students from the time they were 11 and 12 years old until now 16 and 17.  I have seen some graduate and move on and I still like the moments when I can see them or interact with them on intellectual topics.  I love seeing the growth and the way young minds develop and sharpen.

I am not a main teacher for any of these kids.  I will not have been a major or even a minor influence or even remembered by many of them.  Still there were moments when they learned things that I know will be further built upon in their lives and for that I am thankful.  I am thankful for the small moments when they learned to look at something from a different point of view, learned to be able to articulate their thoughts better, or gained a new understanding of a concept they may have not considered before.  Those are the gifts our students give us and those are the things that make it all worth while.

One of the greatest things about our cooperative is the freedom to teach whatever class we want and the ability to tailor it to the student's interests.  Over the past five years I have taught the younger, middle and older levels of students, having taught at the 2nd-4th grade level, 5th - 7th grade and 8th through high school level.

I do love teaching the younger kids and have the energy and creativity to do so and some of those classes have been among my favorite as I watch kids be introduced to new topics and find excitement for history or literature that they never thought was there before.  The classes I taught the younger students will be the topic of another post.

Today I am thinking more of the older classes, the high school level ones, mostly because I realized yesterday that several students would be moving on from cooperative and they were some of the first ones I had.  I realized yesterday one my students took almost every single class I offered at his level for the past 5 years.  I sometimes joked with him "Aren't you bored of me yet?"  They do get to choose their classes so they do not need to take a class with me.

Over the years I have taught classes about The Chronicles of Narnia, Star Wars, Teen Christian Music, Research, Argument, Current Events, Advertising, and Movie Criticism.  I try to take topics kids naturally like or are easily interested in and then teach them something through the course of the class.  For instance movie criticism, star wars and narnia all really ended up teaching literature and literary concepts.  Teen Christian Music introduced some poetry and analysis and in current events, research and argument I encouraged them to pick any topic of interest to them even if it may not be traditional.

The thing I most enjoyed was class discussion and watching the students test out their ideas on each other and on me.  Watching some students gain a confidence in their ideas and their abilities.  It has been interesting to watch them mature over the years and see the difference in depth of their answers and analysis.  So many sharp minds make for interesting discussions.  While I will miss interacting with some students and still miss some from years past, I love getting to know a whole new crop of students and getting to see a glimpse of where their minds take them.  Watching someone interact with material and other people in an intelligent way is one of my favorite things.  Being able to help offer opportunities and encouragement for those interactions is one of the biggest blessings I receive as a teacher.  It makes all the work I put into a class well worth it.

I love that I teach my own children at home.  I love that I get to see those light bulb moments all the time here with my own children, it is powerful.  I also like that my kids get the opportunity to learn from and experience other teachers and their teaching styles and interact and share their ideas with other kids.  Homeschooling with attendance in a regular cooperative has been a good combination for us.

There are days when I really miss being part of the debate community I spent so many years as a young adult in.  I miss being surrounded by smart, engaged and interesting people who wanted to discuss, debate and think about a wide variety of topics.  I miss the constant interaction and testing of ideas.  The iron sharpening the iron.  I know my own background in debate heavily influences the way I approach and teach my classes to the high school students.  I try to encourage them to do that to each other and try to let them discuss and lead as much as possible using guided questions or probing challenges so they will interact and work it out with each other.

My favorite age of mind is from about 13-23 or so.  Those ten years (with a few on either end for some) are so formative and to watch the mind work is very interesting.  So many ideas are being tested, independent opinions and factual judgements are being formed on so many topics.  It is as if the mind is sprouting wings, discovering them, deciding which way to point, flying off, falling and picking back up again, sometimes resetting a new course or trying the old one with new energy.  So many people don't enjoy people of this age group but I really do, they are some of my favorite people and I almost always feel refreshed after walking away from a discussion with people in that age group.  Teenagers and college students, I have loved them since I was a debate coach and I think I always will because of what is going on in the mind. Forget about the hormones, crazy behavior, and other annoying habits and try to touch those minds with yours for just a moment and you will come away rewarded and possibly challenged yourself, I know I always do.  Thank you to all of you who have blessed me over the years.

Remember it is School

This is the season where sports resumes in our lives and I start to be careful about all the time we are spending out of the house during the school day because I know we will not be spending our evenings at home.  We will be at a baseball diamond or a swim pool most likely 6 days a week.

I start to feel like we should just be in the house more but I need to remind myself that piano, art class, coop classes, field trips, library runs, nature walks and the other out of the home activities we do really are part of our school time, even though they are not time in our house with books.

For some reason this year has been a year of staying home more, maybe because they are getting older? I was always a big advocate of field trips and this year we have gone on so few compared to other years.  I think we have cycled through so many that in a way we needed a break and I have stopped organizing field trips for our homeschool support group which decreased the number I felt obligated to attend or create.  I have also added outside music and art lessons which takes up two afternoons of our week.  We have a weekly kids groups that meets here another afternoon each week and then cooperative in the morning every other week.  So maybe it is not being home more it is just doing different things outside the home.  I am trying to figure how to balance it all.

I think a change in my thinking is needed because those are not "extra" things we do.  They are part of our kids educational experience and I need to remember to look at it that way so I don't feel a sense of lost time.  For the first year we will school all the way through May, the kids do not know this yet but we need to in order to finish our lessons for the year.  There may be a child or two who finishes a subject or two early but in general we will continue all the way through May.  I think this is in part because we have three full time students for the first year and Maria is older with more complex subjects that are taking longer to finish.  We have more subjects, more people and more difficult topic, so it takes longer.

I look at this last 6 weeks or so of school for the year and I think about all we have accomplished and what is left to do and how on track we are.  I keep wanting to reinvent things and change everything up, I need to remember to just stay the course at this point and finish out our semester.  This has been a major year of transition for us already: adapting to various learning styles, changing certain curriculum choices, decreased group lesson time, more outside lessons, becoming more individualized, adding homework and testing practice, and increasing the amount of time dedicated to school.

Some of the things that I discovered we all really did miss and need to fit in more next year are: fiction read alouds, nature walks/sketching, field trips, and service projects.  I did not realize how much we would miss consistent service and how much a part of our family that had become.  I am actually thinking next years schedule will need to include a regular day of service each month, or even more often that that if we can manage it.

Overall I have mixed feelings about this year of school.  I think it has been a big learning year for me.  Realizing how different the kids are and trying to adapt to those needs better and be willing to be more flexible.  We spent a lot of time in fluid changes but overall I think in the long run this will serve us better.

Who Am I Today?

This is a question I will often ask myself as I reexamine where I am at this particular point in my life.  I have worn lots of labels through the years.  Some I self identified with and others may have been placed on me by others.  With each of these labels comes certain assumptions and guesses about who I am or what I believe and how people think I spend my time.

I am a home school mom living in the midwest.  At this point in my life that is a very large part of my identity.  Yet even now I realize my kids are growing quickly and that will one day change.  From time to time I think about what makes me just me.  Not Serona's wife, not my kid's mom, not my kid's teacher, but me all by myself.  How does anyone answer that question anyway?  What do I like to do for fun?  A friend of mine recently had that question posed to her and she was intially unsure of how to even begin to answer.  Many homeschool mothers are just in a stage of life and have made choices about our priorites that make majority of what we do related to our kids and our husband.  That is not neccesarily a bad thing but it is something different from people in a different place of life.

I do not think this is a bad thing and I do love what I do, at this point I can not thing of anything else I would rather be doing right now.  I do wonder from time to time how I would explain myself outside of my relationships with my kids, my realtionship with my husband and my job as a home educator.  I know that is enough and probably the most honest explanation of who I really am at this moment.  Still I know I am more than this and parts of me are in hibernation and parts of me have not yet been discovered at this point in my journey and that is all well and good.

I recently decided I wanted to explore more of this "hidden" side of me and asked some ladies I know to have a different kind of ladies night out.  I asked if we could set down some guidelines of topics we would NOT talk about, namely kids, spouses, homeschooling and any outside jobs.  I am interested in hearing what other women think about books, art, music, sports, hobbies, etc and getting outside of my box and all the "natural" conversations we have.  I want to do some different things than I do on an every day basis as well.  I love watching my kids sports games, I really do, but I also would enjoy going to a poetry slam, an art museum for my own interests, a sports event without children or even dancing downtown occasionally.

The time when my children will leave is going to come sooner than I would like and I will miss the fact that I could only get 3 minutes and 14 seconds alone in the shower before hearing one of them calling for me.  I know then I will need to remember who I am without children and I don't want to lose sight of that person and continue to grow that person I am just as myself.  Still that is a delicate balance of just honestly wanting to enjoy every minute of this life with young children right now, while they still like me, embracing and living it to the fullest.

I am not a mom who prefers to be away from her kids.  I am not a wife who feels the need to leave my husband behind for time alone.  Often Serona has to literally push me out of the door to get away by myself for just a bit.  I enjoy being with them and I enjoy that people think of me as Serona's wife, my kids mom, a home educator and all things related to that identity.  Still I love politics, poetry, research, argument, travelling, biking, long walks on the beach, hiking, dancing, good live Irish music, modern art, live performances, sporting events, and so many other things I have yet to discover.  I think a break every now and then from the common threads of my life to find what still lies underneath will be healthy for me.

I no longer have a nursing child, no babies who can't cope with my absence, really no reason I can't go out every once in awhile without another member of my family.  It feels weird, but it is a good different, and I don't want to jump too far too fast because honestly I am still going to choose watching my son's baseball game, daughter's swim meet, reading to my youngest, or having a date with Serona over just about any other actiivity.  Still an occasional foray back into things I enjoy just for me can only be healthy for me I think.  So here is to finding out a bit more about who I am today and who my friends are all on their own. 

3 minutes 14 seconds

That is the exact amount of time alone I received from shutting the door to the bathroom for a shower to the first knock from a child who absolutely "needed me at that moment".  The reason to ask if a friend can come in the house to play.  I told them to wait until I was out of the shower.  Two minutes later another knock on the door which I ignored.  My total shower time 7 minutes and 30 seconds.  They were standing outside the door waiting for the water to stop.

Sigh.  This is the part of being mom that tires me.  This is the part I thought would go away as my children got older.  I mean they are now 6, 9 and 10 and still can not wait for a whole 10 minutes before needing something.  I really did understand when they were all under 6.  I keep waiting for the day it gets better and my friends of teens say they still knock on the door and they should definitely know better.

It is on the day that I wait until 5pm to take a shower in the hopes I can have 10 uninterrupted minutes and still get interrupted three times that I wonder just for a moment what it would be like to put them all on the bus and watch them roll away and return home at 3 or 4pm.  I watch some of the neighbors out walking their dogs, jogging, heading to starbucks, etc.   Don't get me wrong,  I don't really wish that was the case and I am glad we homeschool.  I honestly am and I love spending time with my kids but sometimes I just crave 10 whole minutes alone in the quiet even if I have to double task and take my shower.  I don't really think this is an unreasonable request.

In the time I wrote this post, maybe 15 minutes I have been interrupted at least once by each of the three kids and more than once by two of them :)  My dog is barking on the deck, it is time to make dinner, my hair will remain wet probably until I go to sleep tonight and I will look forward to the moments after Serona falls asleep and before Sirah wakes up in the middle of the night to be alone in my thoughts if just for more than 3 minutes and 14 seconds.

NaNoWriMo Kid Style

This year to inspire and encourage writing in Maria, our 5th grader, we decided to try a NaNoWriMo style project.  In January of this year I gave her a writing assignment.  These were the requirements:

1.  It has to be a fiction story you make up

2. You have to write 300 words a day 

3.  You can not use the backspace key or edit in any way. 

4. Spelling and punctuation don't matter.  

5. Your goal is 5000 words at the end of the month.

At first there was a lot of resistance to the idea of the project and to the project itself.  It was very hard for her to start and the hardest rule of all to follow was number #3 You can not use the backspace key or edit in any way.  Every time she wrote something she wanted to erase it and start over or felt that particular word was not good enough, etc.  I knew ahead of time this would happen both being a writer myself and knowing my daughters personality and tendency toward perfection or nothing.  This was the most important rule I think in the end.  She had to just write whether or not she liked it.  For the entire month of January and into the first week of February she wrote 300 words a day on a story she had no idea where it was going.  

A funny thing happened along the way, she decided she actually liked both writing and her own story.  She decided this project was worthwhile and she wanted to not only continue it but improve her story.  We took off the end of February and beginning of March and then decided she would write another 5,000 words with a goal of a finished project somewhere around a 10,000-15,000 word project that I would bind into a book for her.  

Now at the end of 5th grade she will have a book written and bound.  She is even beginning to work on some illustrations that might make it into the final draft.  Through the process we are able to teach her quite a bit about editing, punctuation, word selection, sentence and paragraph structure and other grammar concepts.  In addition we spend quite a bit of time talking about topics like story arc, character development, rising action, climax, protagonist, antagonist, and other literary concepts.  We are also discussing other works of literature and good stories from film as we discuss what changes her story needs.  

Today while we were working together on her story arc outline she began discussing a possible sequel.  She said "maybe I can write another book as my summer project".  These words made my heart leap.  Not only has this process forced her to get over her fear and lack of confidence in her writing ability but it has helped her find a personal love of writing and a commitment to this story and the characters she is writing.

So often in homeschooling an assignment or strategy we take ends up in a very different place then we planned when we began.  This is one of those times, I can not imagine the reaction I would have gotten from her if I said "Your fifth grade project will be to write and publish a book."  This will in fact be the end result, one of the fun things about the homeschooling journey, sometimes you just never know where you will end up.  

Piano Lessons

I want my children to have some musical ability as well as an ability to appreciate music.  I know that is one skill set that I can not offer them, a skill that has to be outsourced in their education for them.  A good family friend is an excellent piano player and he decided to start offering lessons in the summer between his junior and high school years and Ciaran decided he wanted to take lessons from him.  It ended up being a perfect fit for him and eventually we added both Sirah and Maria to the lessons.  He goes a nice job with the kids and is very patient both with them and with me.  I am not a great mom/teacher in this area.  I do not force practice, I do not withhold privelage or even require much, I suppose I am lazy about piano.  I decided this was not going to be something we fought about at all.

So our piano teacher is very patient with the fact that the kids progress may be slower than he might prefer and I do not have high expectations of what he will accomplish with them.  He is an excellent teacher and if my kids would practice more they would progress more but for some reason this is one of those subjects I just do not feel the need to push them in.  Just like sports I feel I need to provide them with the opportunities and ability to practice and enhance their skills but then just let them set the pace.  I am glad they all have the opportunity to learn from a teacher who is patient with them and willing to meet them where they are at, no matter the pace they are moving at.

Next year our piano teacher will go off to college and we will be at a loss as we try to find someone else to continue their lessons if they desire.  I am not going to worry about that now and just enjoy watching them learn and progress right now through the remainder of the summer.   I am thankful they have the opportunity to learn in a stress free environment with a great teacher.

Monday Grumpies and Summer School

I keep trying to find ways to avoid the Monday grumpies in our homeschool journey.  Six years and I have not mastered it.  I think I have just finally accepted it as part of the course and just work through it.  The kids do not like Mondays, it is hard to get them back into the swing of things.  I am guessing teachers of all types of schools deal with this as well.  I have tried all sorts of strategies and have as of late settled into just plowing through.  I do not have a huge day scheduled for Mondays, but I do have math and spelling as part of it (which are least favorite subjects around here). Mondays are also shorter book time for us because we have piano in the afternoons which takes up about 2 hours of our day.  I remind myself this is part of their school time so not to be upset about the lost "book time" part of our school day.

Lately on grumpy Mondays in April I have taken to pointing out how far along they are in their school books to try to keep them motivated.  My kids like to finish school in May so they have some of the best time in Minnesota to be outside and play.  As of right now they are not on schedule to finish in May but to continue on through June.  Sometimes they suprise me though by becoming very motivated to finish early in these next few weeks.  Such motivation worked with Sirah today when faced with the realization that she would be doing spelling in the summer if she continued at the pace she has been working at.

This year that motivation seems to not have as much power as we announced a few months back to the kids that we would be moving to year round math.  We already require year round reading in the summer and now have added math (which they were less than pleased with).  I did agree we would be focusing more on mental math and math review in the summer months and in general the lesson time will be much shorter than during the school year, however math every day Monday-Friday, yes I know I am mean.  However September and October were very difficult for math as we spent so much time reviewing what they should still remember and could with just some simple daily exercises so we are changing strategies this year.

I already require them to read 1 hour a day on books of my choice for them.  I do give some freedom within that choice however.  Maria last summer had the freedom to pick anything within the non-fiction subjects I chose for her.  Her hour a day reading was non-fiction.  The summer before it was all the classics, many unabridged.  This summer I have not yet decided what she will do but I am leaning toward biographies in alphabetical order.  For Ciaran, he will likely read the Great Illustrated Classics series and a selection of boy friendly Newberry/Caldecott winners we select for him.  Sirah will break her reading time into two half hour sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening and her books will be based on where her reading level at the time is.  My goal will be to have her reading Magic Tree House books by the end of the summer, but will adapt as she needs.

I would say we do not school year round because I believe I would make the kids do those two things even if they went to group school now.  I think it helped my kids to know that piece so they did not feel like they were falling behind as homeschoolers or that I was forcing them to be schooled year round to make them get ahead.  I was suprised how much more amenable they were to the idea of math in the summer when they discovered I would make them do the same thing if in public school.  Either way I figure it is a good thing and  will not be very demanding of our time this summer.  They should be able to get their work done fairly quickly in the morning and have the rest of the day to play and be free just like every other normal kid in an American summer.