Monday Musings: Stop the World...I Want to Get Off

When I was a teen, my mom would take my sisters and me to visit my grandmother (mom's mom) in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, where she lived. We'd go for 3 or 4 days, and one of the evenings would be spent on the boardwalk, eating ice cream, saltwater taffy, and French fries, buying t-shirts, and riding the rides in the arcade/amusement area. 

I remember one year we all climbed on to a spinning ride that went really fast forward and sideways and then stopped to go the same way backwards. I rode in the same car as my mom, and, to my mortification, she made the controller stop the ride so she could get off...which meant I got off, too. I was totally ungracious to her and remained embarrassed and a bit miffed that she couldn't stay on for a few more minutes for most of the rest of the evening.

It wasn't until years later that I rode on a ride (one I'd ridden many many times before) and suddenly understood the feeling of sheer panic that can run through you without any warning. It's nonsensical to those who don't understand. There's no rhyme or reason for it, but it takes over and consumes your reasoning until you have to change where you are or what you're doing to even get a tiny handle on sanity again. 

I blame it on hormones.

Funny, right? Not really. Not even slightly. It can be internally terrifying until you ground yourself again.

Fast forward to my own motherhood. I have often complained lamented mentioned in other posts on here that I feel like I'm barely hanging on to this ride called "Life" that sweeps the kids away into adulthood. I often occasionally wish that it would slow down (or even pause) to let me catch my breath. It's an odd sensation, not unlike my poor mom wanting to get off the ride that was terrifying her, making her feel dizzy.

I am dizzy.

I don't know if it's because the beginning of a child's life seems painfully slow that the race to the adulthood seems to speed up exponentially.

There's a saying many older parents use: The days are long, but the years are short.

So how is it that we are a less than three weeks away from graduating our youngest child...and our last homeschool student? How have we managed to finish this chapter so fast? Was it fast? Or is my perspective just skewed by living nearly 55 years of life? I don't remember the years flying by when I was a teenager. In fact, most of the time, they seemed to drag by with all of us anticipating the next phase with the common impatience of youth.

Stuart asked me the other day: "What's next for you?"

It was a hard question to answer...and one that was met with a lot of emotions.

What IS next? 

It's not something I really considered. I've been a stay-at-home mom for so long now, I don't really know how to redefine myself yet.

I guess I wish the wasn't "the end" of our homeschool journey, not because I want to hold back our son...but because I have so much more I want to learn with him.

The days are long, but not long enough, and the years are most certainly too short.

Sigh.

Starting....

...second grade!

One day down...179 to go. Only kidding. It was an awesome day!

Saturday Sweethearts

From the First Day of School on Tuesday:

Love these sweeties with my whole heart!

Back to School...But Not for Us

So everyone is going back to school today. But not us. (Cue: Nah-nah-na-nah-nah.)

No, actually it always feels a little strange...like we're missing out somehow or like we're supposed to start. We start next Tuesday.

And, for one of our brood, that will be the last first day of schooling at home.

Kinda bittersweet, huh?

It's hard to think that we began all of this with Emily over 12 years ago. She stood in front of our rented house for a first-day-of-school photo and smiled her biggest grin. She wore a cute dress with a white knit top and pink-and-red gingham bottom -- a pink-and-red gingham strawberry appliqued in the center of the top. She had straight brown hair, neat bangs, and tanned skin. And she was so excited! (I'm still amazed the photo wasn't blurry.)

If I close my eyes I can still feel the warmth of that late-summer day, smell the hot macadam of the street, and hear the sounds of the city around us.

"Smile!" I say.

And she does, really really big.

Then hand-in-hand we head back into the house to start our journey of learning together.

Has it been easy? No way. As with most things in life it  has been filled to the brim with ups and downs, moments when we wanted to strangle each other, or hop on the nearest schoolbus (and that was me!).

Has it been worth it? Absolutely. Without a shadow of a doubt. I would do it again. Over and over. I learned so much with her, both educationally and personally.  

...

Sometimes this wing-spreading-letting-them-grow-and-go thing is harder than it looks.

How was your first day of school?

Let's Make a (I)Deal

Several years ago, I started taking the kids out on Friday to do a little "writing" time. We started it for two reasons: 1.) to further their creativity and enjoyment of writing; and 2.) to give us some supplemental time towards our Language Arts.

It was a perfect way to get us through the week...the proverbial "carrot."

It started off well.

We split our time between Starbucks and Barnes & Nobles, since both had wonderful cafes and the perfect writing environment (and, more important, good coffee for Mommy).

Fast forward a few months...and now I was pregnant with #3. It was still a good way to keep us (mostly) focused through our weekly schoolwork.

I began to look forward to the time as much as (or more than?) the kids.  But somehow #2 was getting bored with the idea; #1 found the environment at Barnes & Noble too distracting -- she would have rather been reading all those awesome-looking books.  So we tried to change the day...and time.

Still, it was hard.

Each week, I had the ideal writing time pictured in my brain. We would go with our notebooks and pens and get our drinks, and then we would dutifully spend an hour together writing from our souls.

Bwhahaha!

Fast forward still another few months and #3 arrives. Of course, some changes were inevitable. For one thing, the newest guy had his own idea of what his schedule should be...and we had to help him work into our family/school schedule. Thankfully, he did beautifully.

But writing time still got shuffled around based on naptimes, feeding times, diaper-changing times, and basic tiredness-all-around times. We got out of practice for a little while.

Enter "Homebucks," our own little writing cafe, done at home with home-brewed drinks and yummy snacks.

Yeah, it worked for a little while -- and it ended up being a great backup for times when writing time just wouldn't work out otherwise.

Once #3 got old enough to miss the occasional mid-morning nap, we ventured back to our old haunts and tried to rekindle our tradition.

Hmmm...somehow it didn't fit the ideal of what we'd once had. An impatient #3 was not interested in sitting -- happily or unhappily -- while we wrote the latest installment of our characters' adventures.

Yet again, my ideal was smashed to pieces as I tried to figure out how to make it work. And yet again, the image of sitting around a cafe table, writing together whilst drinking our bistro drinks, flashed through my mind. Babies crying or throwing everything on the floor didn't fit into those visions.

I was ready to quit.

And then it happened. I realized that we -- more likely I -- had to be patient. My "ideal" needed to be an evolving concept, changing with the children and our moods and experiences during the week.

This past Friday, I sat back and looked at my kids, all enjoying this special time together, whether writing or playing with cars or drawing/coloring in a book, and I knew that I was already experiencing my ideal.

Sometimes, you have to be thankful for what you already have, instead of looking for more.

Thankful for that and a few dozen cookies, cars, and other bribes necessary to bring the moment some peace.

Time 4 Reviewing

Starting today, I've been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review.  (We're considering our options for next year's schooling so this should be really helpful and fun.) My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience.

Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.