I wish I could show you what all we are doing (top secret elf business), but Dan thought that this photo, dim as it is, might well represent life here this week: paper bits and knives, several decks of cards, a lot of salt, a rapidly growing plant...leaves...some more paper...
We've entered the first week of trying to hold it all together with a little bit of structure amidst all of the Fun Stuff. Usually I feel like our structure is pretty fun, but maybe I'm delusional. The play Dan and Eliza are in is kicking into full gear, leaving me and Ani on our own, which sometimes feels Special and sometimes feels a little Lonely. Yesterday it just felt like a mini storm, after a non-structurey day of dental appointments, library, and lunch out to celebrate no cavities, which lead to three hours of Calvin and Hobbes (am I exaggerating? I just don't think so...) from which there is no return. Throw in a long over-due phone call with a friend (for me) and several episodes of Garfield (for her) and we were on a tipsy-whirl. We got it together for a peaceful bedtime, but good golly. We tried to parse it out at lights-out...we both agreed that maybe it's because she loves one-on-one person time (which I translated into the love language of "quality time") and having all of that focus on the mischievous rascals of her cartoons took up her time to connect with me...But we're guessing. It just wasn't fun.
Today we're headed into market, and having friends over to bake, and I'm wondering if I've "given away" another of our solid days of connecting and getting things done...
I loved this post on Simple Homeschool about creating a homeschool compass with your kids. It's what I'm thinking about this week as I figure out what we forge ahead with and what we leave behind. I sat with Eliza a month ago to talk about hers, and her top interests she wanted to follow were writing a book, working on her body and her body image, and learning how to make some comfort food she could share with friends. She writes every day, and is slowly reading through Gail Carson Levine's Writing Magic, which seems to be propelling her forward. She has taken up the occasional habit of jogging around our neighborhood, and is finishing up two dance classes this week, and signing up for a third once the year resumes in January. I am watching her experience what I imagine many people experience in puberty - being nearly consumed with the changes in her body - and I am trying to envision for her what I always imagined would be right for this age: lots of physical activity. Outside if possible. We're working on it. She knows more about her body and is more observant and communicative about it than I ever remember being. I'm so grateful for that. The comfort food is happening; that's where her idea for making savory biscuits came from last week. Success! Today our friend Savannah is coming over to make cinnamon rolls with her. I need to get them on something not so glutenny one of these days...
If I look at her compass - the things that she wanted to focus more on in the coming weeks - then I see that we are doing all right with what we're getting to each day.
Ani couldn't sit still long enough for us to work through the compass questions, so I'm listening and doing some guess work. What I did hear her say in many ways, was that she likes to have something to DO every day, something that gets her going in the morning. It seems that we're filling that need these days as well. Oh come on, you don't call going to the dentist "something to do"??
I had a moment at the library a few weeks ago. I went while Eliza was at an evening dance class, and I was sitting on my own with a huge stack of books. I was trolling through some of the "what your fourth grader needs to know" kinds of volumes, along with a few on hands-on science and who knows what else, when one of the librarians came in with her five year old. They'd just been to parent-teacher conferences, and she grinned and said, "Huh. What do you do about parent-teacher conferences?" I looked at the table and my lap, overflowing with books of ideas, and said, "Well, I talk to myself!" I thought it was funny that just when schools are hitting a period of evaluation, so was I. I also read recently that November and February are the big doubt months for homeschoolers. Our fall is going, has gone, so much better than last year's fall, that I really am feeling all right. My kids are exploding with all they're doing and thinking about, and if we don't always get to what I have in mind for us, we are still creeping forward and carving out time together. I am getting better at saying no to things that will completely derail our weeks. No visits on Mondays, and I try to keep our mornings to ourselves, but then I have to remind myself that one of the things we love best about homeschooling is the flexibility it gives us.
I am writing all of this to encourage and reassure myself, you realize. I had a little fit today about how the things I plan don't seem to make it to the top of the list - as if this were all about me. Left to their own devices, as I gave myself a wee break to calm down, Eliza picked up her room, showered, and read her chapter book (Walk Two Moons) and Ani listened to Anne of Green Gables for the 792nd time and made Christmas presents. I need to take a deep breath and get over my Big Plans. We are doing all right.
