How To Not Fail

Homeschooling is like learning to swim. You get good at it by doing it. As much as you wish you could be good at it before you start doing it, that’s just not how it works. You’ll make many mistakes—plan on it, and use them—to learn and improve, not to shame yourself. Mistakes don’t determine your experience or ultimate success.

Your experience will be determined in part by the temperature of the water, but mostly it’s your desire to learn and the support you line up for yourself that matter.

Your success will be inevitable as long as you don’t quit.

As for the temperature of the water, this usually is not something you have much control over. Some pools are warm and inviting. Others are a shock. But even if the water’s not as warm as you like, you can trust that your body will adapt. And if you want to learn, you’re willing to experience the discomfort.

Your desire to learn is the most important. If you don’t want to swim, how likely are you to try it? And if you do try it, but do it against your will, how quickly will you learn? How much will you enjoy it?

If you’re overcome by fear and anxiety, you’re going to have a tough time putting on your suit. A tough time getting in the water. A tough time trusting your teacher. And it’s understandable. Why would someone put their head underwater willingly if they don’t know if or how it’ll come back up again?

So number one, decide for yourself if you’re going to do this. Number two, get clear on your reason why. Number three, make sure you like that reason.

Then, only then, can you get to peace.

Once you’re there, all that’s left is to begin.

…

If you’re swimming, you need a pool full of water, a swimming suit, and a towel. Sunscreen and goggles are big plusses. This is the setup. In homeschooling it might be the books, the curriculum, the pencils and paper and chalkboard and desk….or whatever the tools and environment are that you need for your style of homeschooling. Oh, and don’t forget the children. You’ll need at least one of those. But simply gathering these things together doesn’t magically teach you how to homeschool. You can dive in and sink or swim. Some people learn this way, through trial and error, without much help. That’s how I started. It took a long time. And it was hard.

If you’re smarter than I was, you’ll do these three things:

1. Line up a teacher. Not just someone who’s been doing this longer than you, but someone who can explain it. Someone who remembers what it’s like to be a beginner, and can guide you through. A mentor who inspires you.

2. Get a life coach. Just like a life guard, if you’re scared or unskilled and out of your depth, she can spot it and pull you out of danger and into safety. She’s trained for this. She’s calm and qualified and can see the big picture. She’ll help you.

3. Lastly, make sure you’ve got a friend or two. Learning to swim doesn’t have to be miserable. Knowing you’re not alone can make all the difference.

When it comes to homeschooling, you might feel alone at first. But if you look around, you’ll discover you’re surrounded by friends. There’s no shortage of homeschool co-ops, nature groups, and community resources. If you can’t find a group, you can start one! But you don’t have to do the group thing if that’s not your style or reality right now—all you really need is to find one person you know who’s chosen the same path for educating her kids, and spend some time with her. You can bounce ideas off of each other, share the tips and resources you’re discovering, and cry on each other’s shoulders. Trust me. You’ll need to.

As for a teacher, make sure you get one with experience, and a style and demeanor that you’re drawn to. Watch the way she treats her students. Watch the way she “swims” in her own homeschool. And see how you feel when she talks about it. Is she passionate? Is she bored? Is she militant? Is she flexible? Watch her. Learn from her. Above all, ask for lessons! I really underutilized my mentors when I was learning to homeschool, probably out of fear or shame. This was a mistake. People are happy to help, but they need to know you want it!

As for a coach, I highly recommend someone who’s been trained by The Life Coach School, or has other training that gives them concrete tools, processes, and frameworks that make your time together productive. You need someone who can teach you how to deal with emotions, how to set and reach goals, and how to look at your life in a way that reveals all your options to you.

…

I’m a homeschool mentor and coach. To me, those are different skill sets. As a mentor, I’m like the swim teacher. I’ve learned, studied, and practiced. After more than a decade of parenting and homeschooling my five kids, I’m proficient, and I’m pretty good at teaching it. I can show you how I homeschool and why. I can help you avoid pitfalls and teach you strategies to move things along. I’m passionate about what I do, I love doing it, and I can help inspire you to catch the vision, get started, and keep going.

As a coach, I am trained to teach you two skills that are the whole ballgame when it comes to homeschool success, regardless of the method, approach, or style of homeschooling you’re going for. The skills are: what to do with negative emotion, and how to achieve your goals. I have tools and processes in place to do this in a structured way. And I’m watchful and can see where you’re drowning and use my tools and processes to pull you back out. I’d be honored to be your coach and take an objective look at your life and what you want, and help you figure out how to get it.

Your fears might feel new to you, but they are not new to me. You can learn to put them in their proper place so they don’t sabotage your homeschooling. You’re not the first person to choose to homeschool. It’s actually a beautiful, well-trodden path. You need a coach and mentor to guide you through it (I volunteer). You need to see others doing it (get a friend), and consider that they might even be enjoying it. And then you need to look inside yourself and believe that maybe, somewhere, somehow, you might be able to do learn to do it—even enjoy it—one day.

things that don't keep

i like things that don’t keep.

the meal that took all day to prepare and ten minutes to devour.

the leaf blown off its November branch.

the baby asleep in my arms.

eye contact with a storyteller.

the space between alleluia and applause.

the way the three-year-old says “spaghetti.”

who i am today.

Either/Or

As children, we are taught in absolutes.

Good or bad.

True or false.

Left or right.

One or the other.

There’s a date on the calendar when summer vacation ends and school begins. There’s a number of right or wrong answers on a multiple choice test. A grownup tells me how many bites I have to eat to get dessert.

The lines are drawn, pointed out, and enforced by others. Learning to walk presupposes that the ground is solid. Once you’re sure of it, you’re willing to take a step.

Experience over time, of course, inevitably yields an unraveling of the dichotomous worldview that had been so carefully administered. We become aware of exceptions, gray areas, ambiguities, biases and discrepancies. We fall and skin our knees. We study natural disasters in fifth grade. And suddenly we realize that, at any time, an earthquake could crack open what had once seemed settled. And then we watch the news and hear that it’s happening somewhere in the world right now.

There is a lot of fear in this place. Vulnerability. Disillusionment, confusion, cries of “That’s not fair!” and “Wait a minute,” and “Why me?” The sting of the bandaid being ripped off. Sometimes by accident, sometimes by a bully, and sometimes by the person you most trusted. Turn inward and face despair. Outward, betrayal.

And then the earthquake happens to you. Crisis. There is no luxury with which to utter accusations anymore. There is only survival.

Thankfully there is an open door—the next level of awareness, and one that I’m slowly awakening to. Familiarity. Acceptance. A growing ability to tolerate discomfort. A wisening and softening to the understanding that the earthquake is part of the plan. And somehow, so are we.

Yes, things first look like “either/or.” And it’s a human thing to wish they still did.

But the power—the peace—lies in the “and.”

A letter to myself

Dear Emily,

It’s September 2009. You’ve just moved to a new state with a new baby. I cannot tell you how long you will live here, or how many children you’ll end up with. I’m writing to you from September 2019, so I know the answer to both of those burning questions. I know you won’t believe me, but I’ll say it anyway: you shouldn’t know the answers yet. It truly is better this way.

You won’t believe me because you’re hurting right now. It feels like you have a giant hole in your stomach, all the time. You keep wondering when your well of tears will dry up, but it seems there is a limitless supply. You have been ripped open in so many ways. You are pulsing with pain.

You’re begging me to tell you how long it will feel like this. When—or even if—you’ll get relief. If you only knew, you tell yourself, then you could manage.

The trouble with that is that then you would not grow.

So I cannot tell you how long, how hard, how much, how soon, how painful, how low. You have to discover that.

What I can tell you is that you will live through it. And you will become a far more beautiful person for having done so.

You want to challenge me on that too? I understand. Because ugliness is coming out of that gaping wound of yours. And you’re confused and frightened by it.

It’s supposed to be this way.

I know, because it’s how you get to where you’re going.

The “how” is what everyone thinks they need to know in order to get “there.” But the “how” can only be revealed one step at a time in the present, and only understood by looking back on it afterward. So the wisest thing you can do is to stop asking how, and start saying yes.

Yes to pain.

Yes to doubt.

Yes to fear.

Yes to loneliness.

Yes to the callousness and betrayal and abandonment you feel from what you thought you could count on.

Yes to what has been stolen from you.

Yes to the pain you cause yourself and the pain you cause the people you love.

Yes to the fighting and the denial and all the screaming, so much screaming, in your head.

Until you learn to love this mess, you can never clean it up.

But how? you ask again. How can you love what has gone so terribly wrong?

By believing that God can make something even more beautiful from all these ashes.

By believing that you’re strong enough even when you feel more weak and tired and defeated than you’ve ever been.

By trusting that it’s supposed to go wrong. Which, in reality, means it’s not wrong at all.

That feels like a cosmic practical joke, I know. Like God couldn’t possibly exist, or even worse, that He doesn’t care.

But nothing couldn’t be further from the truth.

I will give you just one glimpse into the future to show you what I mean. I don’t think He’ll mind.

In a few months, you will be sitting at your computer while your baby is napping. You will write a beautiful piece, born from pain, about your pain. You will feel desolate. And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

Ten years later, you will be sitting at your computer while a baby is napping. You will write a beautiful piece, born from pain, about your pain. You will feel whole. And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

The piece will be this letter. And you will know that while you wish so badly you could ease the pain your past self is feeling, you wish even more that she will experience it. Deeply, fully, as painfully as possible. And you will feel so so sorry. And also so completely sure that it is the right course.

Because you will have learned by then that the right course is the one that is.

The “how” is not your business to know now.

It’s yours to know then.

When you are feeling joy every bit as exquisite as your pain.

You will not believe now, or then, how lucky you are.

How incredibly blessed your life is.

How much love you have.

You will not believe it.

But it will be so.

And writing will be the only place you will know where to put it.

So weep now, and write your words, and nurse your baby, and feel your pain. Feel it intensely. Completely.

All is well, both now, and to come.

It’s on purpose.

Even—and especially—the not knowing.

Love,

Yourself

Heavenly Peace

The late morning light filters through the blinds, halfway open, like my eyelids.

My potted string-of-pearls bends toward the sound of chirping birds in the yard.

There’s the tick of a clock, an airplane passing overhead, a neighbor child riding a big wheel outside.

And one more sound.

Always new and oh so ancient,

and, for me,

on account of my extremely good fortune,

familiar.

It’s a rustle of blanket,

a sigh,

a gentle smacking of lips, and then—

light, steady breathing.

She’s eight days old, asleep at my left breast.  As she dreams, her smile and fluttering eyelids make no sound at all.

My heart bursts from wholeness.

As soon as I realize this, a cloud of anticipatory loneliness washes over me.  Is she the last one?  The last unborrowed newborn I’ll hold close?

My eyes well with tears.

I remember someone else’s words about someone else’s future loss, that fit mine just as well:

The pain then is part of the happiness now.  That’s the deal.

How can she be in my arms, yet grown and gone?

The math of love and time is senseless.

All I know is

I will soak in your smiles,

love you, love you, love you,

and hold you close

as you go.

What should my homeschool look like?

I get asked about homeschooling a lot.  Many people have entered my home for one reason or another, and almost immediately asked, “Do you homeschool?”  I used to be one of those people, curious about this alternate universe and wondering if I could, or should, live there too.  What would it look like?  How would I know if I was doing it right?

When I decided to homeschool, I went looking for answers.  I was quickly tempted, disoriented, then discouraged by Pinterest searches.  It was full of contradictions.  Everyone claimed the best schedule or curriculum or method or blog or room layout or supply list.  I learned I needed less suggestions, not more.  One or two mentors was better than ten or twelve.  A straw, not a firehose, is the only way to drink in homeschooling.

Plenty of online strangers were more than happy to tell me the right way to homeschool.  But when I asked the mentors whose opinions I most value about curriculum or classroom furniture or daily schedule, their answers seemed nebulous. 

And now, as a mentor myself, I know why.

Because schedules and curriculum and classroom setup may seem like the logical place to start, but they’re not.  Not only that, but they are subject to change.  And they are unique to each family.  They were not the formula for successful homeschooling that I was searching for.

So what is?   What will make sure my kids get a quality education?  Everyone says to do what’s right for your family, but how do I know what’s right for us?

Start with your why. 

Pin down not how you’ll do this homeschooling thing, but why you’ve decided to do it in the first place.  Why you want it, why you’ll keep going when it gets hard. 

Then figure out your philosophy of education. 

Then look at your children (and yourself) as people, as learners.  How do they learn best?    What are their strengths?  What are yours?

Then write your mission, and a vision will slowly materialize.  Get clear on your why and on your commitment, and the how will take care of itself.

I remember wanting so badly to feel solid in the curriculum, schedule, and homeschooling method that would be right for us.  But the truth is, they will always evolve.  Just like everything else in parenting, the minute you think you have it figured out, it changes again.

But that won’t sound so scary after a while.  Because you’ll slowly realize what really makes a homeschool a homeschool. 

I have found that when the environment, the role model, and the relationships are sound, my children’s learning follows.  So the longer I homeschool, the less I worry about and research curriculum, and the more I work on myself and my relationships with my kids.

As Charlotte Mason famously said, “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” 

Everything you think you know about school and education will crumble almost immediately when you begin homeschooling.  It will put your flaws and shortcomings under a microscope.  And it should.  Because homeschooling isn’t just for your kids.  It’s for you.   You will be forced to rethink your beliefs, broaden your views, and redefine things you thought were set in stone.  Just as we want our kids to learn to do.

Your children will learn exactly what they are supposed to, sometimes because of—and sometimes in spite of—your best efforts.  And a more beautiful, more compassionate, more intelligent you will rise from the ashes.  

Your only enemy is fear.  And your fears are imaginary.

So let your goal be not to mold your children a certain way, but to allow your children to surprise you.  Choose the child over the lesson.  Run with your strengths, and have the courage to let them run with theirs, no matter what it looks like.

Homeschooling will be nothing and everything like you imagined.

Be willing to surprise yourself. 

Because you will.

On Guard

At night I put on my armor.

Eyes open. Ears sharp. Muscles taught.

Awake that you may sleep.

I’ve been alert all day, protecting you

from demons

of

a different sort.

My loyalty

is fierce enough

to bat away the sleep

that yawns at me.

But deprivation

takes its toll

on the body and the mind.

The spirit

is not

untouched

by fleshy need

and mortal care.

The outside battle mirrors

the one within.

Can I relieve myself

of duty?

Never.

Can I find a way

to care for myself

and you

at the same time?

I try and fail,

by my own standard, anyway.

Can I trust

you can stand

alone

long enough

for me to breathe

and remember the hedgerows

at their peak

in the green summertime

so far from here?

That’s a lie.

A story someone else has told.

I’ve never seen them,

so there is no memory

to dust off

and recall.

But I own a few

seeds that I pocketed

long ago,

before you were a whisper

on the wind.

The Daffodils in

that soaking April…

the gnarled old tree

I claimed,

I sat in,

longing for home

and discovering it

all at once.

My two minutes of solitude,

head ducked against the rain,

feet treading on tired cobblestone

as strong as it ever was.

It was a taste

that awoke

a lifetime of hunger.

I yearned most of all

for you, my love.

I must remember that.

Why do I forget the most

when I look at you?

What threat was I imagining

I spotted on the horizon

when you lost the roundness

of your cheeks?

Dragon Slaying

As I sit down to write, my mind settles on the muscles in my back and shoulders I don’t have names for. They’re pinched, tight, acidic. These are the muscles that allow my arms to wrap around my toddler in the night as we co-sleep. To wrangle my four-year-old against his cinderblock will into a diaper change I’m convinced is best for him, no matter what he has to say about it. And lately, to grip the shaking shoulders of my six-year-old who runs throughout the house in the middle of the night in a mind-world I cannot enter, terrorized by demons I cannot see.

Stop! I command. With my mind, I banish them. I bring him to bed with me, and squeeze his muscles with mine for as long as it takes to both lull him out of his night terror and into sleep. It could be ten minutes, it could be an hour. But my muscles won’t relax until his do. I apply relentless comfort to reassure his existence and kill his phantoms’—a quest that brings new meaning to the old phrase, “bedtime battles.”

Our bedroom is equal parts bloody Colosseum and mother hen haven. But it is my aching muscles that make this room anything at all. Don’t worry, child. I take this pain gladly. I will slay your dragons with my last breath.

And during daylight hours, I will train you with chores and fortify you with fairy tales and grow you with a garden, because someday, before I am ready, you must be. And I will be forced to watch you outside these eyes, hold you without these arms, and whisper, voiceless—screaming for you through the halls of heaven.

A body is a vessel. No more. And no, no less.

An engraved invitation

You are cordially invited

to put yourself first;

to meet your own needs,

pursue old passions and new interests,

and like yourself.

The pleasure of your company is requested

by your best self.

Go to her.

The time can be now, or whenever you're ready.

Directions are enclosed (within you).

Refreshments will be served.

Oh yes, and one more thing:

there will be dancing.

Bouncing back

One night in April my six-year-old asked if he could work on lego robotics.  I looked at the dinner table, covered in leftover Easter candy, rocks from the backyard, and last night's dishes.  "When this end of the table is completely clean, you may," I said, and handed him a package of baby wipes.

"Can you help me clean?" he asked.

"No, I'm cooking dinner.  You'll need to do it if you want room to work on legos."

He made quick work of the task in the typical, whistle-while-you-work manner he seemed to be born with.  "Mom, it's all clean, see?"

I retrieved the lego set from a nearby top shelf, and handed it to him.  He set to work.

After a few minutes of quiet, he asked, "Mom, how do you meditate?"

He'd mentioned meditation several times over the last few days, usually modeling the stereotypical lotus pose and humming with his eyes closed.

I asked him, "Well, first we need to know what meditation is.  Does meditation mean sitting in a funny position with your eyes closed?"

"No," he said," it's giving yourself new thoughts."

We've all been working hard at giving ourselves new thoughts lately.  My oldest child and I find ourselves gripped in the chokehold of anxiety more frequently and viciously than the rest of the family, and I've been trying to share some coping skills.  The six-year-old has been listening.  While he is a cheerful, carefree child by nature, he's getting older and is more aware of dangers, both real and imaginary.  He has also been plagued by night terrors for the past year, that seem to come and go in waves.  He spends the first few hours of sleep in his bed, but I find him nestled in our bed more mornings than not.

"That's right," I said.  "Your mind is kind of like this table.  It can get full and messy.  Meditating is clearing off your mind, then putting a new thought you want to have on it."

"How do you do it?  I have a thought I don't want.  It's a scary dream."  His normally turned-up mouth frowned and quivered.

"Well, it takes practice.  Would you like to do some meditating lessons with me so you can learn how?"

"Yes.  How about right now?  Well, after I finish building."

So that night, as my oldest worked on origami and my youngest two enjoyed some bonus Pixar time, my six-year-old and I went into his bedroom.

"First, you need to find a cozy, quiet spot you can relax in.  It can be a bed or a chair."

"Or a couch," he offered.

"Yes.  And you can meditate anywhere, anytime.  You just have to find the softest, quietest place available to you."

I asked him to close his eyes and take four breaths, filling up his lungs as full as they would go, and emptying them completely.  Then I guided him through tensing and relaxing all his muscles, starting from his toes and working up to his head.

He giggled and peeked a few times, asking the occasional question.  Then he said, "I still have my scary thought."

"We're not done yet.  This first part was just to relax.  Now we're going to learn what to do with our thoughts."

I was kind of winging it at this point, but came up with some imagery that seemed to work.  With our eyes closed, I told him to imagine that his mind was a basket.  He visualized it and customized it to his liking.  Then I told him his basket was to hold his thoughts, that it belonged to him, and he was the only one who could decide what thoughts could stay in his basket.  He is allowed to let any thought in his basket, and he can decide to take it out at any time.

He looked in his basket and saw a thought.

"What does it look like?" I asked.

"It's red and blue."

"What is it made of?"

"Air."

"How does it make you feel?"

"Bad, scared, and sad."

I told him that this thought didn't live in his basket; it was just visiting.  He scooped it up easily, blew on it, and watched it float away, over hills and rivers and mountains, out of sight, back to where it came from.  He said goodbye to the thought, and it said goodbye to him.

I asked him to look in his basket again.  He saw seven thoughts.  They were good.  We looked closely and saw an arcade he likes to go to with his dad and brother, playtime with his best friends, building with his Snap Circuits, and special reading time with mom.  We picked them up, held them, offered to share them.

Then I said, "These thoughts can stay as long as you want.  They will protect your basket.  You can hold them, take care of them, help them grow bigger.  Now I'm going to tell you about something else that protects your basket."

I told him to imagine a bubble around his basket.  This bubble is his to control.  He took a paintbrush and a bucket of strength and painted it, making sure not to miss any spots.  Thoughts that approach have to get his permission to penetrate the bubble.  If they don't, they simply bounce off and float up past the clouds, back to where they live, where they're not good or bad.  Just thoughts made of air.

I counted backwards from five to one, when he opened his eyes and smiled.  He then frowned again and said, "I want to practice it again."

"We'll practice it every day," I told him.

"Twice a day," he said.

"Okay."

It's been three months, but he hasn’t needed to practice it after that first week—at least not with me.  Most concepts click with him immediately, and he doesn't seem to struggle to implement them.  The gap between what he does and what he wants to do is virtually nonexistent.  (Mine is a mile wide.  He lives in the present, I in the past.  I'm learning from him.)

I've been thinking a lot about what he needs from me.  The low-maintenance child.  He's extroverted, fueled by play and people in a way I do not understand.  He's resilient, and when he finds himself in deep water, he simply bobs back up like a beachball.  He doesn't have raging anxiety.  He doesn't have special needs.  He doesn't throw toddler tantrums.  He's not a newborn who needs constant attention.  He seems to grow just fine wherever he's planted.  I'm unnerved by how simple it is to be his mother.  I know he needs me, but not in the way or with the intensity that my other children seem to.

So I show him tools and put them in his hands.  I give him time, space, ideas, and community, and let him run free.  With these, he goes far and doesn't look back.  And I watch, and marvel.

I miss him.  But he makes sure he's where he needs to be, and that's out in the world, not clinging to my leg.  He knows where I am.  And he comes back at the end of the day ready for the bedtime snuggles only I can provide, and the sweet dreams he creates for himself.

Mothers on the wall

I have three limited edition Caitlin Connolly art prints on the wall in my guest room.  They are entitled: “Mother Earth,” “Mother of All Living,” and “Mother Protecting.”   On early mornings like this one, I steal downstairs, turn down the covers, make myself at home in this room meant for others, and gaze at these mothers.

The common thread between them is the depiction of strong women doing the hard, vital work of life-giving.

They look at once raw and refined, centered and vulnerable.  Desperate and sure.

They’re all taking risks and making tough calls.

If that doesn’t define motherhood, I don’t know what does. 

When my first baby was little more than a year old, he stood up in the bathtub (against my warning) and slipped.  As he fell, his chin struck the side of the porcelain tub and split.

Without hesitation, I lifted him from the tub, wet a clean washcloth and tried to apply pressure to the wound.  He pushed me away, blood dripping onto the tile floor.  I put him to my breast, hoping the pressure from his face against me as I nursed him would be enough to stop the bleeding.

It was a swift, instinctive solution, and it worked.  After a couple of minutes the bleeding subsided, and he fell asleep.  But I didn’t like the look of the flap of skin and flesh I saw.   I knew he’d never let me bandage it.  Would it start bleeding again any moment?  How much blood is too much blood?

It was borderline. 

I wiped his blood from my chest and called my mom.  “How do you know if your baby needs stitches?” I asked. 

“I don’t know,” she replied, “but I can tell you what my experience was taking your sister to get stitches when she was little.” 

She concluded, “If it’s under his chin, people won't notice the scar.”

She couldn’t, and didn’t, tell me what I should do.  Hearing her story both frightened and reassured me, and I suppose it did influence my decision somewhat.  But the call was mine, not hers.  I was the mother now.

The irony here is that as a daughter, I still believe mothers always know what to do.  But as a mother it rarely feels that way.

I’ve often reflected on that early parenting moment and the room it made inside me for instinct and doubt to coexist.  As steward over four children now, many decisions fall to me that affect both the present moment and the future.  Their future.  But the choice is mine.  And there’s no perfect answer.  

So I do it anyway.  And I do it afraid. 

Mothering is one tough call after another.  In all the time spent second-guessing (and I’ve spent a lot  of time second-guessing over my decade of parenthood), my instincts have always been right.

Or at least right enough.

So, like the mothers on the wall, I will set my intention, trust my instinct, and jump.

Lessons my dad has taught me

Work first, play later.

Do your duty.

Return and report. 

When you’re overwhelmed, go to the mountains.

Do 40% of what you’re trying to do.

If you can’t say no, say, “Not yet.”

Endure well.

When you’re hurting, you can choose to hunch over and moan or stand up straight and move on.

There are ten different ways to look at a problem.

Give offers freely, and advice when solicited. 

Listen well. 

Ask questions. 

Get the whole story. 

Patience.

Most things don’t really matter.

2 am is 2 late.

Generosity.

Get your face in there.

Grace.

Question your assumptions.

Wait. 

Weird is good.

Be well, do good work, keep in touch. 

A dirty Jeep is a happy Jeep. 

Go figure it out. 

...

Just as influential as these lessons are the methods he used to teach me:

1. He spoke softly.

2. He corrected me privately. 

3. He taught briefly.

4. He taught by repetition.

5. He taught by example. 

... 

I would do well to stick to these techniques.  I guess I’ll go figure it out.

Feel

I’ve thought about writing this for months.  I hit a wall almost instantly, every time.  I banish it from my mind, but it keeps coming back.

I need to put words to this. 

What’s stopping me? 

Perhaps it’s not knowing which parts of this story are mine to tell, and which ought to be left to my son to tell someday, in the manner of his choosing. 

There are some loaded words swirling around us, and I don’t know how much power to give them.  They’re words I’ve been afraid to say out loud.  Words that jar me to see in print. 

Labels. 

Labels applied to other people and their children—never to me and mine. 

What does a label do?  How long will it stick?  And who has the right to apply it?  

It feels like drawing a box around my child—something I’ve never wanted to do.  Will it protect him or imprison him?  Will he feel freed or cornered?  The water is murky here.

Experts have flung some words our way.  They’ve changed the way I see my son.  If I tell them to others, they’ll see him differently too. 

But they already do.  So maybe it will help more than hurt.  But I expect there will be some of both.

The chalk is in my hand.  What will I draw for him?  A box?  A word?  A dream?  A path? 

He’s little now.  He cannot read.  But he has ears and eyes.  One little hashtag could connect me with other women who find themselves in this strange land.  I want to help them the only way I know how, which is to say, “I know.  Me too.”   We women are a fountain of strength for each other.  But my little boy...how will seeing that hashtag coupled with his image make him feel five, ten, twenty years from now?

I never knew a mother could feel so helpless until I was that mother.  A mother who wondered how she didn’t know what her child was saying, what he needed, who he was underneath his screams and fists and slamming doors and hurling rocks.

Where are you?

Trapped, your whole life inside your very own skin—skin you cannot feel unless you scratch until there’s blood.

We mothers want our babies’ blood to stay inside, where it belongs. 

But we all need some way to feel.  You need edges how I need softness.  You walk the line I stay away from.  You need impact the way I need solitude.

You seem safest on a rocky cliff.

You need touch like I need words. 

It’s how we know we’re alive. 

So I will fight for you, my son.  Until my last breath.  I will help you to be free, to feel right, to feel home.  I don’t care where it is or what it’s called.  We will find that place together.

Process

My son was five years old.  His two little brothers and I ran, breathless, to keep up with his endless quests for knowledge.  I provided endless strewing and modeling.  Anything I threw at him, he'd absorb.  He split light, built a telegraph, raised a butterfly, read chapter books silently, and memorized nature encyclopedias for pleasure.  At night, we'd lie in bed and read E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan.  This was his kindergarten year, though I never told him that.

Our homeschooling success hinged upon two things: a rich, authentic learning environment, and my silence.  He seemed born knowing how to drive his own education, and my early attempts to require any sort of script-following in the name of standards or learning outcomes were unnecessary at best and damaging at worst.  

I hadn’t planned on homeschooling, but the nearer he got to school age, the stronger and stronger became my instinct not to send him.  It was undeniable and slightly terrifying, and I had to dig deep to figure out why.  I had to define for myself what school and learning really were and examine their relationship.  (If you haven’t done this for yourself yet, I recommend you start now.)

The main reason I chose to homeschool him was to protect and nourish his holy curiosity.  I had to come to terms with the unsettling irony that sending him to school would sabotage his learning and his identity as a learner.  I do not think this is the case for all children, but it is unmistakably true for him.

Although my conviction of this was clear and solid, it took some time and some work before I would learn to release my self-imposed restrictions and root out the limiting public-school-absorbed beliefs I still held of what a school could look like.  And of course, I had to face my fears.

The times I am least effective as a parent and educator are when I react to the fear of being different or trying to please somebody else.  My mama-bear instincts and experience are strong enough to now to keep such fears in their cages.  But I was a new, fiercely dedicated homeschooler who was determined to get it right, and every time I hit a bump in the road, I came face to face with those fears.

When his progress wasn't steady in a particular area, or if we hit a wall, I worried I was doing it wrong.  Trying to push him up and over a hurtle did nothing but frustrate and distance us.  Even my offers to let him sit on my shoulders to get a better view were rebuffed.  I laugh now to think that steady progress and no obstacles should be either possible or desirable hallmarks of a quality education—homeschool or otherwise.  But at the time it felt like the goal, and while I may not have reached it, I had to at least outdo the public school system.

I know now that there must be walls to climb for growth to happen, and growth is the real education.  My son showed me time and time again that he had to climb over the walls himself.  I learned that my job was to provide him with the tools he’d need and get out of the way.  He’d build and climb the ladder.

We had been reading about animals and food chains, and I thought it would be fun to create a mural and hang it on the low wall in our foyer.  (Yes, we had a foyer where we lived.  That is a story for another time.)  I cut a long piece of paper from our easel and handed my son a roll of teal, patterned washi tape to secure it to the wall.  I envisioned the hanging of the paper to be a quick, efficient process, which would be followed by hours of enjoyable, collaborative mural-making.

My son had other ideas.

He was taking much too long.  Instead of just taping each corner of the paper as I had expected (but not instructed), he seemed to be intending to tape the entire perimeter of the ten-foot-long banner.  His face fell and the light in his eyes dimmed as I lectured him about wastefulness, took the roll of tape and walked away.

It took me maybe sixty seconds to come to my senses.  I was no poster child when it came to efficiency or thrift.  I radiated hypocrisy, and stung with shame.  I wondered how I had missed the mark with my vision of this learning project.  And then I realized it had been my project, not his.

I approached my crestfallen child, still kneeling on the ground beside the unfinished work I'd snatched from him.  I crouched down, looked him in the eyes, and said, "I'm sorry.  I shouldn't have done that.  Tape is meant to be used.  Use all you want."

He seemed to re-inflate the moment my respect for his work returned.  "Thank you, Mommy," he said, and resumed his process.

The mural hung there for months, with only a few sparse pencil sketches my son made at my request.  (I suppose if it had been that important to fill the paper with the colorful animals and habitats of my imagination, I would have drawn them myself.)  But they were surrounded by a vibrant, painstakingly-applied border—the real masterpiece.  My project had fizzled, but his was complete.  Authentic, hard-earned, and beautiful.

Weaned

Yesterday I got my toddler to sleep in her bed at naptime without nursing her.  This has never happened before. 

She’s a focused, peaceful, no-fuss kind of person.  As toddlers go, she asks for relatively little during the day.  She’s content to explore, forage, rejoice in her brothers’ good fortune, and create her own purposeful work.  She keeps me in her line of sight, and all is calm.  (With her, anyway.  My three boys are another story.)

But at night, she asks for all of me.  And I oblige, partly because I feel such gratitude for the flexibility she graces us with each day.  But mostly because she is wee, I am tired, and we have a rhythm. 

I’ve felt a gentle pull the last few months to change it.  Because co-sleeping is beautiful, but nighttime nursing is a little wearing.  And my husband is sleeping a room away, and I think it would be nice to be nearer.

But after all the nights my husband was gone during all the years he traveled for work, my little ones and I have perfected our bedtime routine and my husband and I have forgotten ours.

He’s home now.  The long-hoped-for local position at his company became available a few months ago, and after four and a half years of going the extra mile (quite literally), he earned it.  Sleeping a room instead of a state away feels like heaven.

But I am bonding with someone all night, and he is not.  Hence the pull. 

But this means more work for me.  To create two new nighttime rhythms. 

The one with my husband feels elusive.  His frozen shoulder pain dictates his sleeping position.  He likes a fan blowing on him at night, and I don’t.  And the farther out of earshot my children are, the harder it is for me to relax.  When I hear them breathe, I rest easier.  So when I am in the master bedroom with my husband, I lie awake long after he’s fallen asleep.  And when I’ve finally calmed my mind, relaxed my body, and given myself permission to turn down the volume on my internal baby monitor, a child cries out my name, and I know I would have gotten more sleep if I’d stayed in her room to begin with.

Are nights for rest or relationships?  With my toddler I can do both simultaneously, automatically.  But when I sneak away from my child’s room and lie near my husband, I can do neither.  Because he’s already sleeping without me.

I want to jostle him awake, and let him know I’m there.

He claims I have no time for him.  I might just as easily claim he has no time for me.  But where is the purpose in playing that game?  So night after night, I fight the urge to fall asleep with my child, even though that’s what works.  I rouse myself if I’ve drifted off, disentangle my body from hers with my fingers crossed that she won’t wake.

I have time for him!  I’ll prove it!  I walk in the master bedroom and lie down next to him, hoping he’ll sense me and roll over to acknowledge me.  But his breathing is heavy and slow.  He’s in another world.  And I think of how hard he works and how tired he must be, how selfish of me it would be to put my arms around him now.  I cannot steal a moment of his sleep.

In my child’s room, guilt robs me of sleep.   In my husband’s room, loneliness does.  I don’t know why a person can be so close and feel so far.  Like the date night that comes after weeks of fighting for time to talk, only to find ourselves alone together with nothing to say.

Now what?

So I sit in the hallway, bedless in a house full of beds, and write.  I hear the rustle of blankets or the gentle bonk of a knee against a wall as my boys shift in their sleep.  I don’t have to look to intuitively sense and mirror the steady rise and fall of my toddler’s chest in the next room.  But when I listen for something—anything—coming from the master bedroom, I hear nothing.

Travel and babies and more babies and more travel have weaned us off of each other.  Can we learn to synch again?   I know we can, and know we will.  But not tonight.

There’s been a brief window with each of my children that opens when I’ve weaned one a few months after getting pregnant with the next one.  They slowly learn to sleep on their own.  My husband and I find ourselves in bed together at the same time more and more frequently, and after a while, a new rhythm is forged.  Our rhythm.  And it’s nice and I sleep and we connect.

Then the baby is born, my husband says goodbye since there’s no sense in both of us being sleep deprived, and I’m up in the nursery all night every night again.

See you in two years.

Then it’s time for the toddler rhythm.

I’m not pregnant this time.  It feels...unfamiliar.

When my daughter learns something, she learns quickly and well.  Getting her to sleep last night without nursing was not difficult.  She had only one nighttime waking and let me cuddle her back to sleep instead of nursing.  This seamless transition was almost two years in the making, of course, but that’s why it was seamless.  To disassociate nursing from sleep, I knew I needed to wait for her development until she could see there are other ways of being close besides nursing.  I won’t make milk forever, you know.  And she’ll need more than that.

And now I feel double loneliness.

I watched a film once of midwives reflecting on the births of their own children.  One woman said, “You can cut the umbilical cord physically, but emotionally you never really do.”

It’s funny, this attachment to our babies.  So strong, so instinctive, so imperative to their survival.  But the ultimate goal as a parent is for your child to leave, to learn to do without you.

A marriage, on the other hand, is born with no instinct, no shared DNA.  But its ultimate goal is unity.  Some people think it’s impossible.  It can often feel that way.

I write and think and work a lot on growing things.  Growing plants and growing children and growing learning and growing courage.  Child-raising is gardening.  I’m steeped in that world, and getting wiser with experience.

Marriage is welding.  I don’t know much about that trade.  The potential damage of that much heat scares me, and the precision required is not in my skill set.  The vision it takes to forge something new and solid out of two strong, separate things?  I don’t think that big.

But as I write this, I realize that God does.

Where I can breathe

In my closet, on my knees, with the door shut, praying amid piles of clothes.

On Tuesday mornings with rare, precious white space on the calendar, after my husband has left for work. 

Anywhere, if I’ve left my iPhone behind.

In a warm Epsom salt bath, looking at my jar full of sand and seashells from Oceanside, while my family sleeps.

In my dad’s backyard on the old white swing, under wisteria vines.

In rain. 

Ice cream in the sun

More times than I can count, I've watched my child's learning evaporate in a matter of moments.  Its fate is sealed the moment I think it needs to be controlled or quantified.  And that thought comes from fear.

Fear I'm doing it wrong.

Fear I have to prove something.

Fear he'll be behind.

Fear someone close to me will disapprove.

Fear I'm not enough.

I am no stranger to fear.

I used to make it ruler.  But I see it differently now.  Fear is only a weed, and has the power I give it.

So instead of fretting, stressing, or crying when I see a weed pop up, I simply put on my gardening gloves and pull it out.

My child's learning is not my job.

I'll say it again.  My child's learning is not my job.

It's his, of course.  And he knows how to do it, all by himself, and he will if the conditions are right.

My job is just to tend the soil.  Make sure there's enough light and water for him to soak up as he pleases.  (Trying not to under- or overdo it, of course.)  Pick up litter if I find it, and throw it away.

And no matter how rampant the weeds, the process is the same.  Put on my gloves and pull each fear by the root, one at a time.

As time has gone by, I've learned to pull them sooner.  To weed every day instead of once or twice a month.  The funny thing is, I no longer dread it.  I actually enjoy it.

Because I'm hooked on growth, you see.

Learning is not manufactured.  It cannot be forced.  It can be trusted.  It can be crowded out by fear.

So tackle your own fears, and your child will grow in all the best ways.

Proof

You ask for proof.  Performance.

I show you leaves and roots.

You ask for experts.  Answers.

I show you the sun.

You ask for data.  Scores.

I show you smiles.

My evidence abounds, but you dismiss

what is green, not red or black.

How can a sprout or wisened oak

speak to a bottom line?

You fear delays and wasted time.

I watch no clock--

only yellowing.

Photosynthesis

is equal parts math and magic,

formula and faith.

Sometimes I wish I could learn

to count,

to speak your language,

to please you.

But my tongue is tied

when you ask "how much?"

because my answer is...

my whole soul.

I sense the smallest pebble

of skepticism in your hand--

the wall shoots up, diamond strong,

granite thick, mountain tall.

Cold, impenetrable,

to guard my heart: living, breathing

outside my chest,

planted in the richest soil

I fetched from faraway.

There's one small window

and a door.  Can't you see?

The handle is unlocked.  Walk through,

I beg wordlessly.

You’ll see the children have been picking

all day,

and find them slumbering in sunlight

with fruit-stained cheeks

behind the garden shed.

But you look through the window,

see me napping on the grass

amid heaps

and heaps

of dirt. 

No baskets of fruit upon the ground. 

Hundreds of invisible stems.

Repotting

My seedlings need repotting.  The paper cups are holding them for now.  Their stems are thickening.  Their leaves are green and strong.  Their roots are peeking through the holes I poked in the bottom of the cups.

They turn to the light from the window.  I rotate them every so often to give them a chance to face a different way.  I think this should make them more well-rounded.  But I'm not sure how much that matters.  What matters more is making sure the taller plants don't block the light of the smaller ones, since they all share space on the trays by the window.

I check their soil more than once a day, to make sure it is still moist.  I know the peas drink faster than the rest.  They're looking for something to climb.

I resist the thought to plant them outside, even though April is here and beckoning.  It was seventy degrees and sunny two days ago, and tempting.  But there is a quiet wisdom in me that tells me, "Not yet.  May will come soon enough."

Yesterday, the wind rattled and rain blew sideways.  This morning I wake to a layer of snow on the ground.

I was right to keep them here.

There are experts with the greenest thumbs and reliable weather vanes.  They've done this long enough to advise people to wait until the last frost (though some are too impatient or uninformed or can't be bothered).  The day is no mystery--it's predicted with impressive accuracy by the weatherman, and I circle it on the calendar.  I trust it, and look forward to it.  I love my seedlings.  I will love planting day too.

Of course, you don't just go and stick them in the dirt all at once.  First you get their feet wet, so to speak, with a process called hardening.  You take them out of doors for some fresh air, a little exposure to the elements, a handshake with a bee or two.  Then it's back inside.  You do this over the course of days, increasing the duration a little each time.  So when you finally introduce them to the garden bed and let them stay, they'll be confident enough to be willing to extend their roots and accept their newer, vaster home.  It's more dangerous out there.  There are bugs that will nibble their leaves, voles that will gnaw on their roots if they get the chance.  I take precautions.  I'll plant marigolds and green onions nearby to ward off the pests.  I'll set traps for the voles.  But I can't prevent acts of God or Nature.

So I'll pray.  I'll check in every day.  I'm prepared for the work, expecting some to thrive and some to go awry.  I'll give them the best conditions to help them bloom.

None of this will matter, though, if I don't plant them in a sunny spot.  That's my part.  The rest is up to them.  But they know how to grow because they know what they are, (though they might not be conscious of it).  The growing part is in their DNA.

I'm getting ahead of myself.  For now, there's still snow outside.  But they're ready for more.  So this time in between sprouting and hardening, I'll repot.  I'll give the climbing ones trellises.  Some fertilizer or peat moss for the ones with paler leaves.   I'll put the smaller ones closest to the window.  Because there's still so much room to grow in this house, and so much to do.

May will be here soon enough.  And we’ll be ready.

Child-made mornings

Perhaps I give my children too much freedom.  But I can’t imagine a more authentic, enriching morning routine than the one they have created for themselves.  Some mornings it’s handwork.  Often it’s building.  But almost always, it’s storyweaving.

No sooner than sleep is rubbed from their eyes, one of them whispers the magic words.  “In the game...,” it begins, and off they go--down child-worn paths, through the hedgerows, and into their secret garden where anything can be.  Though they do not know it, I guard this place, quietly, fiercely.  But I cannot get too close.  If I step on a twig, it vanishes.  

Still, every so often I peek over the wall and hope to see, unseen.

It’s guilded in sun and starlight.  It’s water and prisms, snakes and spells.  It’s rescues and missions and clarion calls.  It’s where time stops and passes together.

It’s where they sing.