Family

Shifting Priorities

Devona 1 Comment

First, a nod to our new ten-year-old who inspired us to blog. Happy birthday to our sweet O (I’ve made the choice to start using initials in our blog posts and public social accounts because the kids are getting old enough to require that level of privacy). I feel honored to be her mother, and am overjoyed at the young woman she is becoming. You can see some one of her awesome ideas here.

Next, some news about our family and me. Moving to California was a really great choice. We’re all very happy here and thriving. Rob is enjoying his new job (if not so much the commute). Homeschooling has been a great choice as well, and the girls are learning just as quickly as they were in traditional school, but they are getting more sleep and living with less stress and hurriedness. I’m hopeful that as they get older and become more skilled at balancing their own priorities they’ll start learning even more deeply the things which they are most interested in. It’s already happening to some degree, like with From Scratch News, but I can see so much more potential for growth with all the free time homeschooling can provide.

And now for the sad news. Honestly, I’m not sure how public I’ve been with this because of how difficult it was to come to the decision. I’ve decided to take a longer hiatus from doula work. I waited about 6 months after our move to start working, and I was getting some opportunities to work which excited me. Without giving away any private info about my clients, the births were so much harder on my kids and on Rob here in CA than they were in Ohio. Having family to pull together to help out was such a difference in support for us, and without it the kids were really suffering. When O is old enough to be the babysitter for an hour or two, I’ll head back to doula work but in the meantime I need to put my kids and homeschooling first. I spilled a few tears, but it’s time to move on.

So what am I doing instead? Everyone knows I’m too high energy to not have something going on the side. It’s not easy finding work I can do which I can keep in the margins of my first priority which is schooling and raising these girls. But I have a few solutions which are working out well. I’m teaching sewing classes on Friday afternoons while the girls are away at their enrichment classes. I’m building websites for friends here and there which is fun. But I’m most excited about a manuscript I’ve finished for a children’s picture book. I’m in the company of a couple of children’s authors in my kids’ park day (here and here) and it has inspired me to take my own shot at it. I’m in the editing phase but plan to be submitting it to publishers in the coming months. Leads and personal experience is definitely welcome.

When people told me that it would take a year to settle in after a move, I believed them. But what I didn’t expect was that a cross country move wouldn’t just change my location, but it would also change my priorities. A lot of the plans and work I was doing were very location-centric. I haven’t really changed the person I am through moving, but my position in the community has changed by necessity, and so my contribution has changed as well. It’s definitely taken a whole year, and I’m not even sure the transition is complete, but I’m finally more certain of where my spent efforts will have the biggest payoff. When you only have a few hours a week to spend your efforts, a good ROI is a high priority.

 

 

Get stuck? Change the Plan

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This morning ended with most of the living beings in our house in tears. The dog can’t cry, but if he could he would have sobbing because I was really mad. And the dog gets scared when I’m mad. Honestly, I get scared when I’m mad, too. I really value peace in our home, and when I’m mad there isn’t any peace for anyone. Today, there was no peace.

Today’s anger came bubbling out of a long-standing stalemate over math. What could have been done in 20 minutes lasted over an hour and half, mostly while I lectured and the perpetrator hid her head in her lap and sobbed (both real and fake tears). School is hard. And it’s harder when it’s the very beginning of the year. And for one of my kids in particular, it’s hard no matter what; homeschool, or school-school. And it’s hard for me to know that letting a kid play with legos and talk with me about outer-space is what would make a kid happy, but it isn’t what would make a kid grow into a real thinker who can get things done. It’s hard to be the tough guy.

But then I remembered that the nice thing about homeschool is that if we keep getting stuck…. maybe it’s the plan that’s not working. It’s not me that’s the problem. It’s not my kid that the problem. It’s that the plan we have set in motion isn’t achievable. We need a new plan. So, I switched math curriculums today. Just for one kid, and maybe even just for one week. But at least we can move forward. And hopefully tomorrow won’t be so full of tears.

A Homeschool Schedule Overview

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School has technically started for the girls. We’ve decided to enroll in a Charter School for this year, which in California means we get to have access to some of the public school funds allotted for our kids to reimburse our curriculum/program expenses. In exchange we agree to teach to the Common Core Standards and having our children State tested each year. We also have the over-seeing of an Education Specialist who is a certified teacher. She looks over samples of our kids’ work through out the year and makes sure we’re reaching our family’s targets and helps us with curriculum choices if we need it. She lent us a child’s version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at our first meeting, so she’s OK in my book.

We’ve spent most of the summer relaxing, in spite of my original plan to keep schooling part-time through the summer. Olivia has been successfully institutionalized by her 3 years spent in school-school, and she cried at my suggestion we skip summer. We can’t have any of that crying about learning stuff, so we took it easy and did a whole lot of nothing. I’m interested to see how the kids react when we jump with both feet into our full schedule coming up. It looks a little bit like this:

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Oh yeah. That’s a lot of stuff. Do you see that big block on Friday? That’s an awesome part-time enrichment school option for homeschoolers in our charter. They go to the campus for a whole day and take hands-on learning classes in multi-age groups. People who know me on facebook know I had been venting a little about how I wanted a part-time school. Well, I found it. Now I’m just waiting to see if it fills our needs the way I’m hoping. If not, we’re committing to try them out until winter break and then we’ll know a little more if it was the right fit for us.

I’m hopeful that they’ll love the on site classes because I have some plans of my own. I’d like to start teaching sewing classes for homeschoolers on my off day. I also have a few other goals for that time to myself. I can get some of my web design work done while I’m free and even just sit quietly by myself. I love spending this time with my kids while they’re young. But, I’m thrilled that I’ve gotten to schedule some me-time this year. I can’t give my kids my all, when I’m always running on empty and there’s none of me to give!