LOST A SOCK

Full House, The Lost Episode

Last Monday morning as we were freshly home from our mountain trip, I carried ten thousand things on my mind for what I would need to accomplish.  Kevin was back to work, there was no fresh food in the house, laundry piles hip-high and half filled suitcases and souvenir bags lay everywhere, and also Vacation Journals called for me, as we hadn't gotten around to them while on the road. 

I felt overwhelmed in the first days of being home, not as if we'd been gone for months, but more overwhelmed than I saw fitting, just the same.  

We were all worn out from traveling and I gave us time to slowly fall back into a routine.  I continued to feel off, and awful, and by mid-week with the ever-repeating cloudy weather and chill in the air I realized that it was possible I was coming into seasonal depression.  It happens some years, and others not.  And it's the most peculiar thing, since fall is one of my very favorite things in life, that the chemicals in my brain should pronounce themselves Terribly Out of Whack while I attempt to devour the best of the colors, smells and crisp autumn temperatures from behind my camera lens and within my favorite jeans and hooded sweatshirts.

Just the same I trudged forward with my List of Musts and previously signed-up-for engagements and Kevin and I had an important pow-wow, now sure that my person was taking an unplanned trip through utter Sadness and Despair.  It was, in fact, bringing luggage filled with all motivation and ability to process day-to-day normalcies with it, and I, not a crier, was crying about everything.   

This past Monday was KJ's seventh birthday.  And if there is one thing that is high on my list of Important Things, it is making sure that there are fantastic birthday memories for my children.  We have family gatherings for cake and presents, and fun activities.  This year we'd met friends at Lego Land the day before, and planned cake again the next night, which I think would be the eighth time this birthday season.  Birthdays are those days I get to think about my child all day, and over all the years how wonderful he is and how my life is infinitely richer for having him in it.  You never know how special childhood birthdays really are until you are on the parent end of them, and you get to fall in love with your child all over again.

And then I opened my eyes on Monday morning feeling like a goner, as if I'd been hit in the gut with an old wooden baseball bat, and couldn't muster the strength to get myself up and pull myself together.  I lay in my bed beside my birthday boy, there after a bad dream the night before, quietly singing happy birthday to him as he opened his eyes, and I told him that I loved him, and I was so proud of him and that I wanted him to have a wonderful day.

Then by mid-morning he was screaming from the tops of his lungs, and the Earth spun far from its natural orbit as my son got the idea somewhere that there existed a possibility that he should not have to homeschool on his birthday, but possibly he could watch television all day instead, he thought.  And this is the part where parenting is so difficult, and so tricky, because with your first child it is always the first time for everything and there is no manual for how to get through a very important battle with your child on his birthday. 

As things escalated, as they sometimes do, I stood there sobbing in the middle of my kitchen, lost in the chemical warfare going on inside my brain, trying to explain to a now-seven that spending your birthday painting pictures of mountain sunsets and creating other masterpieces on All Day Art Day, and calling it homeschool, is infinitely better than five hours of SpongeBob.  We live a good life on our birthdays, or at least we should.  We do what we do, not lay around wasting time.  How do you tell that to a kid?  A kid who is now so worked up, yelling and stomping his feet, crying such angry tears because he suddenly believes it possible that his mother is trying to cheat him on his day?  It probably would never have even surfaced in a parallel universe, had I whisked him off to public school earlier that morning, because all kids go to school on their birthdays, right?

He insisted that I was mean, so mean, and that I was ruining his birthday by not giving him the day off.  We yelled at each other and we both cried.  I had a fit of my own, in the middle of all of the anger and sadness that might be remembered as the seventh birthday morning.  These are the things we mothers don't talk about very often, how we majorly screw it up with our kids because we, too, are human, and we have all-too-short tempers and simply don't know what to do, most especially with an oldest child, because we've never been there before.  We don't have the right words, we didn't expect the problem, we don't have all the answers.  I mostly try to handle things from a calm place.  I have worked very hard over many years to keep my shit in check.  But I blew it, here.

By lunchtime I told the boys we needed to start over.  No day ever has to be a wash-out unless we decide it so, and we apologized and settled down and painted.  We rented a movie, ordered his favorite dinner and had one of his friends over to play with his new Lego set.  Kevin came home from work on time, we had cake, and a mostly good day.

A volcano, even, in his mountain sunset. 

So I went to the doctor yesterday, with symptoms ranging from chills and fever and wheezing all the way down to sure death, and I feel almost silly admitting that I managed to catch the Swine Flu, of all things.  But I certainly believe it, having been sick as a dog since Monday afternoon.  My to-do list seems to be growing by the second, but at least this evening I can sit up straight again and speak English.  We did indeed skip homeschool yesterday instead of the day before, and my children did watch television a good portion of it while I lay shivering and dying on the couch.  This early part of fall has been quite the learning experience, if nothing else.  I hope that I can again gain momentum and drag myself out of the seeming pit of misery as my tamiflu kicks in, or hope at least that maybe all of the despair was only my body gradually losing the battle against a bunch of pig germs.

Thankfully, we have almost all of the autumn season left to go.

Heeeeeere's Seven!

Happy Birthday, buddy boy!  You are the best thing since sliced bread. 

Also, seven seems so old...  Can you slow down just a bit?

Vacation Too

I had every intention of posting the entries about our vacation back to back, so as not to drag things out every bit as long as our trip.  But we have been home (home-ish) for six days now and here I am, still attempting to give proper attention to the forever beautiful Rocky Mountains.

Onward, right?

We were privy to the first signs of fall (now underway, ohhh my smiling heart) on our trip as we made our first stop on a rainy Colorado day at the Air Force Academy.

Our hotel in Colorado Springs overlooked the campus, so naturally the boys loved watching various aircraft fly over as we came and went.  I was still busy drooling over the mountains-- newly snow-capped, even, just as we arrived.

I had visited the chapel there, back when I was fifteen years old, and have remembered it fondly ever since, with its non-denominational services, perfect stained glass colors and architectural details.  An OCD gal's best dream, I tell you.

And speaking of best dreams-- this is where the skies cleared for us later in the afternoon as we stumbled upon Cheyenne Mountain completely by accident.  Don't you love it when the best days seem to show up out of nowhere?  It was us and these giants, and God, I tell you.

And a waterfall. 

When we parked here I utilized my final bars of cell phone service to send a quick picture message to our relatives telling them we wouldn't be returning home after all.  You can see why one would want to live here, yes?  (Our relatives directed us to send the children home via Amtrack.  The loyalty, it is no longer ours.)

Later we pulled off the trail again so that the boys could give mountain climbing a go, bright, fresh mud be damned, because how often do little kids from the Utterly Flat Chicago Area get to say they've climbed mountains?  I gladly stripped them of their muddy clothes and shoes and re-dressed them on the spot before vehicle re-entry, thankful that we had yet to unload our gear into the hotel room for that day. 

Of course, you know the two little boys weren't the only ones to get involved in the climb, right?  Here Kevin had to take KJ up just a bit farther...

Later in the week we also visited Seven Falls, where there was more climbing, both upward---

and down,

and we took an all-too-short afternoon stroll through some of the charming shops and old antique arcades at Manitou Springs. 

Kevin and I promised each other that on a return trip, we will spend an entire day here.  Possibly without children to see The Forbidden Shops of Breakables.  (Parents of young children everywhere tremble with fear, simultaneously.)

One afternoon we ventured through Garden of the Gods, which involved more climbing, lifting and pretending feats of strength of the male variety,

and then finally that evening we were able to meet up with our Colorado bloggy friends.  SJ and I have known each other since Jack and Isaac were babies, living parallel lives in different parts of the country with boys of the same ages, married to Kevin's and mothers of Kevin Jr's, and camera equipment and weight loss stories, and on and on it goes.  I do love the internet, for this. 

My goal for my thirty-first birthday was to walk across the Royal Gorge Bridge, suspended more than one thousand feet over the Arkansas River, and we did.

This bridge! 

We spent the final days of our trip watching the sun set over New Mexican mountains,

spent a night in Amarillo Texas, and drove all the way across the very, very red dirt plains and through the cities of Oklahoma before clipping Kansas, and driving across Missouri and Illinois, back across the border to Indiana.  

We broke all of the rules- eating candy at ten o'clock in the morning,

jumping on beds well past bedtime,

and sometimes driving a little too fast with the windows a little too open, which seemed a little too hilarious to our littlest two kids.

I've already opened a discussion with Kevin as to when and where we can go next.

Full set of pictures here, on flickr.

During which we added nearly 3,400 miles to our car

We have been home for three days now, and I've mostly gotten things unpacked, in between washing ninety-four loads of laundry, cleaning house, running errands, cutting grass, homeschooling, celebrating Sant's 28th birthday and steam cleaning our family room carpet twelve times, thanks to our miserable canine, who decided to it use as his personal pissing space the whole time we were away.  Not that he didn't have an entire entrouage of extended family letting him out and playing with him a couple times each day.  Nonono. 

So as of this afternoon I can add to the list of things I've done, Ordered four hundred square feet of new family room carpeting.  Isn't that the kind of money everyone wants to shell out three days after returning home from a long vacation?  Meh.

At least we have this going for us!  As our very first vacation stop we visited Olympic Gymnast Shawn Johnson's Iowa gym.  KJ has long loved her (whatever long is for a six-year-old) so it was only natural that as we were rolling our tires through her state, we look up Chow's.  Can you see the Playing it Cool look in the boy's eyes?  Endearing and hysterical all at the same time.

(Jack on the other hand...nevermind.)

We have been blessed, and are yet to know whether it be by nature or nurture, with amazing car travelers.  We are very much an on-the-go family, so it was great fun to see so many places across the country with a crew who was, for the most part, patient enough to get there.  We stopped every couple hours for stretches, picnics and to throw the football around, and when we were lucky enough to have all three kids asleep at the same time, we gunned the engine for as long as possible, our own bladders be damned.

Also, we taught them to throw their hands up and scream as we flew down steeply-graded mountainsides.  For effect, you know.

By night two we'd gone from Indiana through Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, quickly into Minnesota, and we sleepily dropped anchor in South Dakota.  There are many bugs in South Dakota.  Less now, thanks to our windshield. 

We visited the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota, by day and by night (maximizing on the Extreme Dork that is our tendency)

and I hooked up with a new Indian Baby Daddy out there

after Kevin ditched me for Sacajawea.  (Jerk)

Lots more quirky fun was had at Wall Drug in South Dakota, where Jack entered into holy matrimomy with a life-sized statue of a 1920's show girl (very scantily clad, and, uh, busty, might I add,) cracking up bus-loads of elderly folk as he conversed with his "Wifey" as she became.  And the only picture I have of Jack and Wifey, my new daughter-in-law, is blurry something awful, and stuck in my cell phone.  Score.

Later that day we finally reached our first major destination, Mount Rushmore!

I had been there a couple times as a kid, but didn't realize until we got there what a child's memory of the place I had.  It was so neat to see it as an adult, and to teach my own children about how the memorial was created, and why, and of which presidents were up there. 

In South Dakota we also visited Dinosaur Hill at sunset one night, which is so simple with its steep climb and aged, concrete giants, but also quite beautiful as it overlooks all of Rapid City, and many, many mountains.  Nothing could complete that evening better than knocking back some serious ice cream for the first time, I think, of forty, on the trip.   

We got up-close with the wildlife at Bear Country USA, which is a driving park filled with free-roaming (duh) bears, and also elk, buffalo, wolves and bighorn sheep.  We put these two out on a bench for hungry animals to snack on, but there were no takers.

Bear Country was the place where Jack purchased his first souvenir of the trip, a black bear named May.  May, the boy, to be exact. 

He loved May like I'd not seen him love many stuffed animals, excited to show May his first dvd, his second state, and so on.  Then we managed to leave May behind, several days later, in our hotel in Colorado Springs.  For the low, low price of twenty-some dollars (more than his original price tag, might I add) May took another route home, arriving on our porch today via Fed-Ex.  It's love, kids.

Next to driving, the thing we did the most of on this trip was swim, for sure.  Back in March when Kevin and I were in California, our greatest expenses involved fancy dinners and we barely saw our (inexpensive) hotel room.  On this trip with the kids, however, quality of hotel (and cleanliness, God Help Me) with indoor pool, water slide and sometimes separate bedrooms and kitchen were of top priority.  Fancy, quiet dinners?  Ha. Ha. Hahahahahaha. 

We swam every morning after breakfast, with the exception of our last morning, when road time was seriously of the essence.  I was so glad to indulge them in that every day, and sometimes even late at night.

After heading out of South Dakota we traveled through quite a bit of Wyoming, the eastern part of which was infinitely flatter than I had imagined, but no less pretty with it's golden grasses and unclaimed wildlife. 

It had a lot of nice buttes, too, heh heh.

And holy hell, may I not forget to mention the Casinos! Everywhere! in South Dakota and Wyoming.  Gas station casinos, restaurant casinos, strip mall casinos, old fast food restaurant buildings turned into casinos...  Crazy about gambling out there!

Being only half-way through our trip route, (now getting into Colorado!  See Rockies!?) I better pause here and check on my children's whereabouts.  (Only half kidding.)  I will be back with part the second soon.

Thirteen, including my own

So now that we are home, I finally get to jump up and down screeching, Guess where I spent my birthday!

Here is where!  Specifically, at the Royal Gorge Bridge in Colorado, suspended 1,053 feet over the Arkansas River. 

But also, we've spent ten days practically everywhere.

I can never be exactly sure how safe it is to tell the whole internet that my house will be void of persons (minus those kind souls stopping in to let my dog out) for a period of time, so then I don't get to share any of the fun that is leading up to a massive vacation.  But it is fun!  And it was fun!  And now the laundry and unpacking I am left with?!  Not as fun!

There is nothing like loading up a car, though, and driving across the country to see in person exactly where it is we live.  (Here, Wyoming.)  Spending most of my life in, or a stone's throw from, one of the largest cities in the country, it is never short of amazing to dig my feet into the dirt of the tiniest towns and fantastic cities to really know what we've got. 

We began in Indiana and straight across Illinois, and then visited Iowa, Nebraska, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Missouri, and back through the original two again.  We saw thirteen states this trip, bringing us to 24 of the 50.  Almost half way!

Thankfully, we are raising a pretty travel-savvy crew, so they're usually willing to go with the flow.  Multitudes of special vacation treats and daily swims don't hurt any, either, I will be the first to admit.

Now if you don't mind, I better go attack my laundry.  I've got three thousand loads of clothes to sort...right after I sort my three thousand pictures.  Can't wait to share the rest!

I Sell Air

Tonight is the eve of my thirty-first birthday.  It's late, and I am sprawled out on an unfamiliar though comfortable couch, watching the early 90's movie City Slickers.  I will forego the late-night sweets tonight, still stuffed from a delicious dinner with friends.  Also, I had late-night oreo cookies yesterday.  Just a while after finishing a dish of cake batter cookie dough ice cream from Cold Stone. 

(Yeah, whoa.)

I wonder if all thirty-one year olds still feel seventeen?  I thought, when I was a kid, that I would be whatever I was going to be at thirty-one, very settled.  But now I am willing to bet that I will never be settled.  So young and unfinished with the big picture at thirty-one.  

Thankfully, when I read the thousand books that encourage people to do what they love?  I do that!  I stay home with my three young children, teach, take trips to wonderful places, read my favorite sorts of books, cook my favorite foods.  I take pictures, I write, I sew, I cherish my dear friends.  I care for the environment as I am able and I embrace honesty.  My husband and I make a fantastic team, and we have molded ourselves into the family that we wanted to be, mostly.  I love my children dearly, and tell them so.

Of course, at thirty-one I still struggle.  I have baby weight to finish taking off, and then some.  I remind myself that happiness with my body will not begin when the weight is finally off, but that the weight will come off when I make peace with my body.  I need to sleep more, and I want to embrace imperfection.  I want to communicate more effectively, and say what I mean.  I am overly-analytical.  (Heh, this post!)

I do love thirty-one.  No need to drive cattle, this year.  Tomorrow should be fantastic.

Goodbye, So Soon

Even a bit faster than I thought it could happen, the three-year-old preschool Saga of Tears has come to an end.

I was going to give it the week, this week, remember?

So in the car tonight, on our way home from a library-sponsored bubble demonstration (what is it about bubbles that can make even adults so doggone happy?) I reminded Jack that he would need to get to bed on time tonight to be rested for preschool in the morning.  And then, silence.

I asked him if he was going to be okay, and with the small voice that is forcing back tears, he said yes, that he would try to be okay.

I suppose I should go back and say that his anxiety about preschool is pouring all over our lives, these days.  Anytime there is mention of me so much as leaving the house for twenty minutes without him, there are tears, clinging and wailing until I agree to bring him along.  He refused to stay behind and play with Kevin's mom last week while I ran to the hardware store, and then this afternoon it took much cajoling for him to go with Kevin's aunt, and KJ, for ice cream.  I had to convince my three-year-old to go out for ice cream.

He was a clingy baby, and a clingy toddler.  I didn't mind.  I gave him what he needed.  (A baby bjorn.)  Some babies just want to be closer to their mothers than others, is all.  Then this summer, as he settled into age three, he became a bit more independent.  He even attended two sleep-overs with family.

But school has taken us backwards, quite a bit.

So as his worry quickly turned to tears in the back seat of our car this evening, I finally offered that Kevin and I would not make him attend preschool this year if he wasn't ready.  I had been waiting, dead-bolting my mouth shut, before uttering those words-- to make sure I was giving my boy the fairest shake possible with school.  What was enough?  Two weeks?  Three?  I could tell it wasn't time, after the first two days.  And when I finally gave him permission to be Not Ready, he sighed, and I could easily feel his relief.  And then he cried harder.

Did he think he was disappointing us, or that there was something wrong with letting go of whatever is Just Not For You at a given point?  Most certainly, therein lies a reminder for myself and for all of us in grown-up land who are punching in for a million different requirements, large and tiny.  March to the beat of your own drummer, for goodness sakes. How long do we get here?  Eighty years, at best?  And then what?  Holy hell, be happy NOW. Live honest.   

I told him it was okay, and that maybe going to school would be easier when he is four.  He repeated that, and felt better. 

So this fall we will carry on with our original plan to continue swim lessons at the YMCA, and maybe try out a new sport.  And we will visit the library, the museums, the apple orchard, pumpkin farm and the zoo, and we will explore the massive middle chunk of our country. And try out parent-attended karate in the winter, as per Jackson's request. 

He will be fine.  And I will be mostly within his reach for another year.  

And besides, I really don't see his teenage years being spent perusing the fabric store with his mother, because he's not a fan of hanging out with friends.  We really don't hear those tales very often.

Why, hell yes I enjoyed my cake!

Why do you ask?

Well, actually, at first she wouldn't touch it.  Suddenly a bit shy about making a mess, I guess.  Then I handed her a spoon, and she was Off To The Races!

About mid-way through I began questioning how great of an idea this was for my poor child, who consumes actual cake, or sugar for that matter, approximately next to never (I knew I would find some benefit for her being a third child. Girl lives healthy.)  And though I worried that it would knock her little socks off, she did okay.  She remained awake for something like thirteen hours straight, but her head never spun.

Yes, there remains a pink overtone to her skin.

Also, I failed to get a picture of my sweet girl in her birthday dress.  It was pretty and pink, with a big flower.  And this is all I have.  A princess and her presents.

Which were loved forty percent as much as the cards.

We decided to try a September combo party this year, celebrating KJ's birthday as well.  He turns SE-VEN in a couple weeks, people.  Why would he do this?

Also, he's shattered his father's pure Notre Dame heart by straying from the herd, excited as all get-out this year for Oklahoma.  Here's his first Sooners jersey.

No, we have no idea where this fascination came from.  We live in the Northernmost Westestmost tip of Indiana for all practicality, and can spit into Chicago.  Oklahoma?  Eh?

This weekend we were finally able to corral all of the Ray-Dunscombe kids into one room for a sit-down shot (which, hello, five kids under seven, welcome to the impossible) as Bree and Luke and the kids were able to join us as overnight visitors for the weekend.  Where the moms stayed up too late talking, and then the babies took turns waking up all night.  To make us paaaaaaaay. Mwahahahaha!

And then back we go, to homeschool on Monday morning, with the old baking soda-volcano experiment.  Great way to get rid of mashed-together Play Doh, great way to use up all of your dish soap.  That you don't particularly want to use up.

While I am so glad that our Double Birthday Bonanza went off without a hitch, I have to say that I am tired.  The transition from Mom X 3 to Mom X 3 plus Teacher and Party Planner has been exactly what I imagined when we originally took the homeschool leap.  Though I do love it, it has doubled, or even tripled my workload between lesson planning, teaching and cleaning up from school, on top of everything else I normally do here.  I need a serious vacation, friends.  Or a mother's helper.  Or a cleaning lady.

One

I've been thinking all day today about what should be said in this post, and now on the eve of Marin Pie's first birthday I still haven't completely organized my thoughts.  (Cue creative title.)  I want to somehow convey the marvel that is my daughter, truly the happiest baby I've ever known, right along with the profound changes that have come to our lives with her presence.  This baby girl, and the doors she has opened, continually humble me as her mother and as a human being.  She is sweet, and so loving, and smart as can be.  I always love being her mother (even in the middle of the night, still) and without making the moments pass too quickly, cannot wait to see what the future holds for she and I together. 

At one year old, Marin has been taking steps for a bit more than a month now, and has a deep-rooted interest in climbing.  (Gahhh.)  She has a vocabulary of about seventeen words and makes the sounds for puppy, kitty, lion and cow.  She loves dogs, the delectable contents our cardboard recycling can, and babies of all ages.  Her favorite toys include her stuffed Winnie the Pooh, her play kitchen with the million opening and closing doors, and any lego contraband she can get her chubby little hands on.  She loves her Elmo board books, as well as the Touch and Feel animal series, and the time of her life is had while chasing people.  She is happiest singing and dancing with me around the kitchen, and crawling all over Jackson on the living room floor.  She eats a killer variety of the healthiest foods I could possibly ask for, and is particularly crazy about cheese, broccoli and pear slices.  She's a great two-a-day napper, and is happy as a clam to be carted all over the midwest in her car seat, wide variety of strollers (heh) and baby bjorn. 

About six months ago, Marin had surgery to remove the top half of her right kidney, due to a problem she was born with.  It was amazing to see what a trooper she was, and how quickly she came through the surgery and recovery.  We were so relieved after all was said and done.  And now, just last week at a regular follow-up visit we learned that there is swelling on her left kidney as well, and though we're not exactly sure what that will mean for the future, we are crossing our fingers for the best outcome again.  We will begin all of the testing again after Christmas, in hopes of giving her a last chance to outgrow whatever the problem may be.

I feel like I'm running through nuts and bolts here, listing information in a concise way that is not leaving quite enough room to say...God we love this baby.   I never could have imagined everything falling into place so perfectly the way it has, or having a child- a daughter, so amazing as she is.  I can hardly believe that just one year ago we were just officially meeting for the first time. 

Of course, I may have been forced to stamp FAIL across her very blank baby book, but it wouldn't be a birthday around here without a video montage, eh?

Happy Birthday, sweet girl.  Your mama loves you so.

Start your day with a steaming hot cup of Mommy Guilt

So it turns out that posting about homeschool is the easy part.  Here I was worried that the kids wouldn't want to participate, and I had frightening visions of arguments over Lego or Wii time and much hatred for getting down to business every day.  But when I call Time For School, everyone hops right over.  This is the good stuff.

But what people aren't hopping for, is preschool.  Unfortunately.

Jack cried at his first day of preschool.  This came as no surprise to me, as Jackson is the child who spends his every day within thirty-six inches of my person most of the time.  And I was once a preschool teacher, and a handful of my students cried on their first day, and they got through it.  I sort of saw it coming with Jack, and told myself he too would get through it. 

Some of my students cried on their second day.  Jack did too.

This morning we are finishing out our second week of preschool, and still the crying.  Worse every day. 

Sadly, it isn't just a little crying at drop-off that can be calmed by promises of pick-up soon, or anything he can be distracted from.  Jack wakes up at seven a.m. sobbing giant crocodile tears that he doesn't want me to leave him at preschool.  That, after he spends the entire night before worrying that he has to go to preschool again the next day.  He cries through breakfast, and he begs, while getting dressed, that I please don't take him to school.  I try to soothe him in every way I can think of, by reminding him how we always picked up KJ, and mapping out his day for him so that he knows snack time is half way done and story time means mom is in the hallway. 

Nothing calms his little worried mind, though, and by eight thirty I am inevitably dragging him down the long hallway so his teacher can pry him from my body while he screams at the tops of his lungs, reaching for me.  She shuts the door to keep him inside and offers to draw Batman with him, or set up bowling (two of his favorite things.)  And I can hear him screaming for me until I am outside of the building.  He calms down after fifteen or twenty minutes, usually, and then two hours later I pick him up.  And by the time we reach the car he is again asking worriedly when he must return.

I signed this poor child up for preschool this year, thinking it would give him some time to do his own thing.  I wanted him to enjoy it, and make his own friends and have new stories to tell.  I thought it was the right amount of time away per week for a three-year-old, and would be fun for him.  I didn't envision this.

I suppose I am writing this to document some little blip on our family timeline, either the time Jack almost had a nervous breakdown over preschool and we called Game Over, or the time I almost had a nervous breakdown over my son's nervous breakdown and then he magically got over it super-quick in week three and wouldn't even kiss me goodbye in October. 

I can't say for sure what the outcome will be here.  If not for the advice of family and friends to wait it out, I might kindly thank his teacher for the most expensive two weeks of playdates evah, and not return after today.  I have never been the extreme tough it out mom, always preferring for the kids to do things when they are ready, rather than when society dictates that they should be ready.  And I, too, was that nervous kid in school with the stomach ache about being away from home, so I know how it feels. 

And in the same, we're trying to strike a balance between worried stomach ache and sending the wrong message by prematurely calling quits. 

Has anyone seen my parenting manual?  I can't seem to find it anywhere.

Where the games begin

Now that we've gotten our very first year of homeschool underway, and I have a good idea of how to execute it, I thought I might finally lay out the nuts and bolts of how we go about this business of educating kids outside of a classroom. 

I suppose I should say, first, that it turns out in our neck of the woods that homeschooling is less of a commonality than I had imagined it would be.  Eighty percent of the time when the concept has come up in conversation, there have been raised eyebrows and sure looks asking Are You Crazy?  More often than not, homeschoolers in our area tend to be extremely religious families looking to shield their children from outside influences, which is fine, for each family to do whatever they feel most appropriate for their children, but that is not our reasoning.  I suppose in the most cut and dry way I can say that Kevin and I want to see each of our children to learn at his or her own speed, and from the world around them.  I think that if the goal of education in general is for children to have understandings of certain concepts by the time they reach adulthood, there has to be more than one way to go about attaining that goal, right?

And I won't lie.  Being an elementary teacher pre-motherhood, and now having the freedom to again shop teacher's stores and write weeks of lesson plans and research art and science projects?  Bees knees, friends. 

We began last week by reviewing already-known concepts and practicing our printing, and this week we moved into more of the real deal, and the solar system.

My boys have long loved the stars, planets and galaxies, so I grabbed it and took off.  (To the Adler Planetarium, here.) 

My plan is for us to study one major concept at a time, for about a week or two each, while pulling in reading, writing and math every day.  KJ gets lots of reading time, and enjoys choosing whatever the mood strikes him to read about.  It is sometimes nice, to focus a solid chunk of afternoon on Spiderman. 

I invested approximately $50 in math, spelling, reading and science workbooks at both Barnes & Noble and the dollar store earlier this summer, at the first grade and preschool levels.  Beyond that we use all that's been collected from book orders over the years, and from our library. 

That being said, I create my own curriculum and don't really feel the need to spend loads of money on a pre-planned laid-out one. I can happily report that the internet is absolutely overflowing with first and second grade learning criteria, as well as printable worksheets and project ideas.  Earlier this summer I purchased The Teacher's Calendar book, which lists all major happenings, anniversaries and births by date.  Each day I choose one fact for us to research, which has so far gained us understandings of Mother Teresa and what it means to be a humanitarian, Martin Luther King Jr's March on Washington, the discovery of the Titanic and the origin of the US Treasury. 

We generally work for two or three hours each morning while Marin naps, and then finish up whatever is left on the day's list throughout the afternoon.  Our homeschool room has already grown to a bit of a disaster, with collecting materials for upcoming projects and activities.  I have no choice at this point but to embrace the clutter.  Maybe we all can grow this year?

Most of all, so far, I love taking cues from the kids throughout our sessions.  I create a daily checklist of must-accomplish activities, listing everything from subtraction worksheets to board games, and the boys choose the order and check off the boxes.  Our learning is child-led in this way, which I hope will foster a continued interest in learning (and checklists!) when they are older.  We have the freedom to skip over pages if they aren't quite useful, as well as the option to sit, stand, kneel or hop on one leg or the other while working.  I am pretty sure we will scratch the second grade surface by mid-year, and cannot wait to find where that takes us.  And of course, it works out wonderfully when they begin getting antsy, to have the freedom to call recess and send them out the back door for a bit.

This is exactly the way I wished to teach when I was in the classroom years ago, only couldn't with twenty-two children at a time, for obvious reasons.

I know that this homeschooling gig isn't for everyone, (and I'm almost daring myself not to say it, because every time I make sweeping proclamations about parenting they must somehow find ways to be turned completely upon their heads,) and that it isn't exactly the most popular avenue for American education, or the best-known, but I really think this is a great thing for us.  I feel completely in my element here, and the kids are so excited to jump right in every day.  

May I still feel exactly this same bliss and dedication as we're tackling parts of speech in the dead of winter, a few months from now.