In the past few weeks, Oliver has taken his first steps and said his first words - dada, mama, biff/buff (referring to pacifier, cup, anything he wants to put in his mouth), BALL! BALL! BALL!, and several animal sounds including an intimidating growl, 'oof, meow, moo. He can make it up the stairs in about two seconds and immediately grabs at the hall night light, which makes for a fun sport. Catch the baby before he electrocutes himself! Yes, we need the hall nightlight. No, there's no place for a baby gate. We do scoot the shoe bench in front of the stairs nowadays and it tends to at least slow him down.
The big milestone that I want to share with you, though, is our very exciting, not-so-perfect but oh-so-successful first day of homeschool. It felt a lot like that exhilarating-yet-terrifying moment when your dad first lets go of your bike and inside your head is all, "I'm doing it! I'm really doing it!", before you either truly do make it down the street or crash horribly into a bloody mess of gravel and skinned knees.
I'm really hoping for the former, personally, when it comes to our school year. Isaac's string of recent injuries notwithstanding (whole 'nother blog post, that).
Want to see a little of how it went? I'm looking at you, grandparents and long distance friends, especially. Let's begin with the proud mama parts of the day, shall we? Because I totally did THIS with the pancakes:
I strategically did not photograph the letters and shapes which suffered a clogged squeeze-bottle nozzle. Daddy's first "D" was a slight casualty, but you should have seen my blobby pentagon. And the kids could not identify the ice cream cone without significant hinting on my part. Isaac later tried to tell Daddy about the cloud (or was it a flower?), and I believe his description was along the lines of, "It was a....um....a big thing...mommy what was the big thing?" Also, after doing the obvious names and "school" and "teacher", I asked the kids for word ideas. Next up were dog and cat. Cute. Next choices were oil and bread box. I don't know, guys. I think we're just looking around the kitchen and naming things we see.
My goal was to be all up early and get in most of school before our "special recess at the park" (read: Mama got invited to an Usborne book party at the park at 10:00, and YES we are going!). However. Of all the days, my kids slept in til 8:00 and I had to wake the baby at 8:45. So there's that. Maybe I can count breakfast as phonics because letters and stuff? We did have a successful Meeting Time with our calendar and whatnot. Hit the park, ate donuts, cried because we couldn't take home the sample books (the kids were kind of disappointed, too), and came home to squeeze in some First Day Hooplah before lunch.
Behold the F.D.H.! (Ahem. Videos coming soon. Too long for Blogger to handle, must edit.)
You will notice that my kids' favorite food is apparently soup, the veracity of which I cannot at all confirm. Especially carrot and cucumber soup. But they both favor the Bible (pardon me, Word of God) as their favorite read, so excuse me while I pat myself on the back for my incredible parenting. Also, they both aspire to becoming a doctor. If you need me, I'll be shopping online for a cushy old folks' home for when they are rich and I am feeble.
Our school day was highly flexible. And by highly flexible, I mean we went to the park for an hour and a half mid-morning, and I did at least half my teaching with Oliver either on my hip or making animal sounds and hurling toys across the floor. He was really pretty low-maintenance as babies go, but you should be impressed with my inner sanctification, because how many kindergarten teachers do you know who have to keep their business together for calendar time while a miniature person devotes his whole being to unplugging the modem? (Today I got smart and strapped him into his chair for waffles during our morning meeting. We just had to deal with the aggressive BIFF BIFF BIFF when he got thirsty. Piece of cake.)
[Do you love how I added the year to my calendar by slapping that business onto a green notecard and sticky-tacking it up there? And nobody actually wanted to find out what "Exploring" might mean. Fine. I'm just over here not taking it personally.]
The Lord continues to provide, not only for mama to stay in control of her feelings while the kids refer to me as "Teacher Harriet" all. day. long., but also by filling in our curriculum gaps. I haven't been super satisfied with our phonics curriculum, which I was pulling from Phonics Museum and Explode the Code because neither one was quite at the perfect level for either of my kids. And then a homeschool-veteran mom friend literally gave me a complete Phonics program yesterday when I saw her at the park. Welcome to Alphabet Island, my friends! God is so generous and cares about whether my kids are literate.
There's so much more I could share, but the main thing is that the day felt like a big exhale of anxiety for both my kids and me. I found out that school is going to be fine, and so did they. Mikayla had the sweetest conversation with me last Friday in which she told me she was worried about school, and that she was worried there wouldn't be time for them to do things they wanted to do. I think the kids were relieved to find school a bit fun, and not taking up the whole day. Do you check in with your kids to find out what they expect, and how they feel about it? I so frequently need reminding that they don't have a whole 25-year history with school like I do, for instance, and might be freaking out on the inside that their whole world is about to turn upside down. When I say "school!" and think 2, maybe 3 hours max of structure, they might be anxious that their childhood is over. Oops. I'm so thankful that God gave me an expressive firstborn who is not afraid to let me know what's going on in her head. She helps me to slow down and be mindful of my kids' experience, and not stay so wrapped up in my own. Really both my big kids are good at putting words with feelings when I invite them to do so. And the first day of school is a big deal full of big feels!
How are you doing with the start of a school year? Are you preparing to send your kids to school and dealing with your own big feels about letting go? Are you keeping them home for school, and dealing with mixed emotions when you read about mamas who are celebrating the end of summer break? Both excited and slightly terrified about all of the extreme togetherness that homeschooling brings? Are you missing the first day of school ruckus because your kids are grown? Let's be honest, every stage of parenting carries some mix of excitement and terror. But let's also take a deep breath and trust the Lord who knit our children together, that He will hold both us and our children in His all-capable hands this school year and every year. Amen?
No comments:
Post a Comment