Playing Hooky

 

It’s been an intense and challenging couple of weeks.  For Boston in general, for our family in particular.   So today I called off all our varied plans and activities and instead we took a day-off, a mental-health day.  We played hooky J.    We rarely do this, and I think that there is something about homeschooling that makes it more difficult for me to call the day off then it would be if my children were in school.  Perhaps it’s that our activities and social opportunities seem particularly precious because they don’t automatically exist, but instead need to be planned and executed by me.  Perhaps we rarely cancel our day because what we have planned is so lovely – and our planned activities for today were quite wonderful (a play date with Homeschool Co-op friends, a hike and building project with others).   But isn’t playing hooky in part the very reason to Homeschool?   We Homeschool so that we can have the flexibility, the time, to really listen and respond to the needs of our children.

The beautiful spring afternoon, my children’s need for time just with me, and my need for a view of the horizon led us to Singing Beach on the North Shore.  And there we were, soaking up the sun and the beauty.  Me, writing and taking photographs.  While my two boys completely engaged themselves in the creation of waterways, dams, pyramids, spillways, and mud farms.  For three solid hours.

Really this is a post about gratitude.  I am so thankful for my beautiful, creative children.  For a spring afternoon at the beach.  For my life, my safety, my family, my friends.  For the sun’s return, the flowers in bloom, the constant changing of the ocean, the expanse of blue sky.   I’m grateful that I listened to the true needs of my children and my heart.  And that we played hooky today.  

Rhythm

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about rhythm and balance.  With the autumnal equinox rapidly approaching, I'm more aware of the balance of light and dark, of day and night, and the transition into fall.  I’ve been planning curriculum for the very limited amount of formal ‘school’ I ask from Skyler (I know, I know, I’m late!!!) and trying to find a way to fold teaching into our day -- or to fold our day around teaching -- while still enjoying these beautiful days outside.
 

Rhythm is an idea I’ve embraced since first learning about it through Waldorf education.  Rhythm is our movement through the day, repetition, the balance of in breaths & out breaths.  Of all the many wonderful things I’ve learned from Waldorf, this has been perhaps the most helpful, and not just to homeschooling, but to parenting in general.  I like thinking of our days, not in terms of schedule or structure, but in terms of rhythm.   How do we begin & end each day?  What is the pace of the day?  When do we socialize, stay outside?  When do we come in and embrace quiet?  What do our transitions look like?  Rhythm is not rigid, it’s paying attention to the flow of your day, finding the balance.
 

Beginning our day with Yoga
 

As parents, I think we all recognize those days (or weeks) when the rhythm is working.  Those days that we move through with a certain amount of ease: things get accomplished without feeling rushed; it feels like everyone’s (even mamas!) needs are getting mostly met.  We have moments to breath, enough time alone, enough time outside, enough time with others.  Perhaps even clearer are the days (or weeks, or MONTHS) when our rhythm isn’t working: when everything feels rushed but nothing really gets done, we’re all crabby, we’re too busy, too alone, or bored.   Those days when things just feel ‘off’. 

Morning work - Skyler math



Morning work - Gryffin math

 
When the boys were babies, their very clear needs dictated the rhythm of the day.  Even last year our rhythm was dictated by early risers, a need for a lot of physical activity, and Gryffin’s very important afternoon nap.  The boys were up at 5:30, leaving Skyler time to eat breakfast, get dressed, play, & still do an hour or so of mama-directed school work BEFORE we left the house @ 9:00.  We filled our morning with activities, playground time, library, science museum, adventures, and then would head home for lunch & nap – when Sky & I (both introverts) would retreat with our books to opposite ends of the house.   About once a week we would go out again after nap, but mostly that time was spent playing, doing ‘projects’, cleaning and cooking dinner.   This rhythm was easy for me to hold, Gryffin’s nap was a precious and necessary (for all of us) priority.  The balance of busy morning and quiet afternoon felt right.




Homeschool meet-up - Playing 'Capture the Flag' with 20 other homeschoolers

Then, this summer Gryffin rather abruptly outgrew his nap.  Both boys started going to bed later & sleeping later (until almost 6:30)!  We let go of any formal lessons as the weather got warmer and the rhythm of our days changed.  We started hanging out at home longer during the still cool and comfortable mornings, playing, cleaning, and cooking.  I started packing our lunches to go, and we’d leave the house around 10:30 or 11 for afternoon adventures – to Walden, the beach, the woods, or just park hopping around the neighborhood.  We would come home late – usually right before dinner – cook something fast (to not heat up the kitchen), eat and take long lukewarm baths.   This rhythm sometimes left us a little too busy to work on projects or keep the house tidy, and I have to say we welcomed those few rainy days to balance all the sun and fun. 

Lunch at home on the backporch

 Now it’s time to find a new rhythm.  The weather is changing once again – autumn brings a return to our home, to cooking, inside work, crafting and ‘school’.   But without the strong dictates of naps and weather, it’s a rhythm I will have to create – a HUGE challenge for me.   I like a certain amount (read – ‘lots’) of floating through the days.  Without structure imposed externally, I easily become un-tethered.  I will start writing here & not notice that the kids haven’t eaten in hours…until I hear them start to fall apart in the other room.   Some of the rhythm of the week is determined by activities, but the internal rhythm of our days is imposed by me, & I find this sooo challenging.  And although Skyler easily floats through the day with me, Gryffin (because of his age and who he is) desperately needs a strong rhythm to lean against.

 

Late afternoon playtime with Cousin Bea

 

Working on a project at the 'Fountain Park'

 

So I try to find the balance.  I try to make sure we have time to work on mama-imposed work AND time for the boys to create their own wonderful projects and explorations.  I try to find the right rhythm between activities and time to read and play and imagine.   I am trying to make sure that we have time to breathe and notice our breath.  That we have time to socialize, make friends, play with other children, explore being a team and time to be alone.  That built into the rhythm of our day and week and year are moments of stillness, time to honor the change of seasons, time to pay attention to the natural world, and time to recognize the sacred rhythm in ourselves. 

What does the rhythm of your day or week look like?  Do you find it changing for fall?

 

Not-Back-to-School

The first few weeks of back-to-school are always difficult for me.  Most of our summer friends are suddenly unavailable and our Homeschool classes and groups haven’t begun.  The playgrounds are empty, and athough Skyler & Gryffin enjoy having the place to themselves, I have that eerie feeling that everyone is off doing something fun without me.  I feel excluded, left out -- a feeling that reminds me of my own experience of school.   I start to fantasize about all the things I would be able to do if I my children were at school, it’s a rich & delicious fantasy.  I imagine the art classes I would take, bringing my laptop to the coffee shop and writing all day, napping, reading wonderfully long complicated books, days filled with quiet.  I imagine a clean house (but strangely, I never imagine myself cleaning – it is a fantasy after all).   Of course, the reality is that Gryffin is only 3 years old, so this fantasy wouldn’t be possible even if Skyler was in school.    But it sounds so…nice. 

 

I realize that this escape into fantasy is not really about what I want for myself, but is more about avoiding my fear.   These first few weeks in September are marred by low level (and sometimes not-so-low level) anxiety, sleepless nights, questions.  Am I making the right choice for Skyler?  What opportunities for friendships, experiences, and learning am I NOT allowing?  Am I making the right choice for Gryffin, who lives so strongly under his brother’s influence?  Am I making the right choice for me?  I love being with my children, playing and learning together.  But, Erik works long hours, and I am sometimes overwhelmed by being the boys one and only.  Every day.  All day. 

 Then I remind myself that I know how to do this – after all, we’ve been homeschooling for 2 years already.  Even when Skyler was in Kindergarten, I guided his academics.  I taught him to read – well, he learned to read, with some help from me.  I have a strong homeschooling community in place, classes to cover the things I can’t (soccer, gymnastics, Ninjitsu), co-ops and meetups to give the boys more opportunities to create friendships, and learn how to negotiate group dynamics.   

It helps even more when I remember that the boys know how to do this homeschooling thing even better than I.   As I write this, they are both completely absorbed in projects they developed themselves.  Gryffin is creating a massive glue & white paper construction, while telling a story about a woman dressed in white who lives in Connecticut.  Skyler has decided to make himself a top-hat.  This involves tape measures, a compass, a pattern created from newsprint then reworked in poster board, and an ingenious method of creating a series of tabs to attach the brim to the top part of the hat.   How did he figure that out?   Together they are discussing the magic show they will soon be putting on.   I pause in writing to convince them to comp me a ticket (rather than pay the $5.00 they requested).   Skyler stops working on his project long enough to show Gryffin how to write the word “Magic”.

I know not every day will have this ease, interest and creative energy.  But in these anxiety filled first weeks of fall, I hold onto the memory of the days that do:  when one project flows into the next, when my messy house is evidence of a day spent making things, when the science museum is empty and ours to explore, when the kids are so involved in their own projects that I can pick up that wonderfully complicated book and read a chapter.   I remember that the magic of learning happens every day in small and important ways and – lucky me! – I get to be a part of it all.

 

 

 

Swimming Lessons

This summer has been all about swimming.  In late spring, the boys took swim classes, Gryffin a beginning class & Skyler level 4 "Stroke Development".  They passed their classes with excellent marks (proud mama that I am, I put the only 'report cards' they've ever received on the fridge) and took their new-found skills into the summer.  Since then, the boys and I have found any excuse to swim.  We are all much happier in the water.



Gryffin 'swimming' on my back -- this is my favorite picture of myself, go Erik!
 

Skyler has been swimming independently for years, mostly UNDER the water.  Now I watch Skyler execute a rather good, and (in typical Skyler fashion) very quick crawl, complete with the dreaded rotary breathing.  When we swim across that small cove in Walden, he's much faster than I (I prefer the sedate & slow side stroke). 

 
 

Skyler has always LOVED being in water.  When he was an infant, and even a toddler, baths were our go-to cure for teething bouts, insomnia, grumpy days, illness, heat waves, boredom.   But being out in water over his head was a challenge for Sky.  Feeling nervous and out of control, he would cling to me like a little koala.  I couldn't understand his discomfort -- Skyler!  Who was so fearless about any other physical challenge, nervous about swimming?  Why, I'd been taking him to the water since he was tiny!  And me, I loved swimming, how could he not?  Then, when Sky was 3 years old we BOTH had a series of nightmares about him and the water.  At this point I figured the divine (or my sub-conscious, whatever) was giving me a pretty strong message & I should probably just let the swimming thing go...and I did.  Water was playtime, but just to his waist.  So what transitioned Skyler from this child afraid of going into water over his head to the cormorant-like swimmer he is today?  The gift of fins & a mask when he was about 4 1/2.  Almost instantly Sky was swimming independently, under water, diving, doing flips, out in deep water.  The mask helped Skyler not only see under water, but helped prevent water from going up his nose.  But the fins were even more important -- they helped him swim fast enough that he could stop himself from sinking (my 0 body-fat boy has no buoyancy), he could now literally keep his head above water.  Now he swims beautifully, without the props, and chooses to stay under water.  

Gryffin has had a slightly different journey into the deep end. G has always been scarily fearless about the water.  At 6 months, while in vacation Florida, he crawled directly into the ocean up to his chin & would have kept going if I hadn't grabbed him back.  He was that toddler that walked off the steps of the pool into water over his head.  His preferred way to play at Walden was in water up to his chin, walking on tip-toes to keep his head above water.  Unlike Sky, he didn't really like being held out in deep water (although he'd swim on my back for a bit).  At swim classes last spring Gryffin figured out that he could swim independent of adults, with just a noodle under his arms - I wish I could duplicate in writing the sound of his delighted squeal.  Imagine a very roo-like "look at me swimming!". 

Even more exciting was the moment this summer Gryffin started swimming "for real".   Gryffin taught himself to swim at Walden on a rare visit when Skyler was in camp, so just the two of us were at the pond.  I was on the phone embroiled in a very intense conversation with my sister, while vaguely keeping an eye on Gryffin.  I noticed him bringing his large bucket out into the water where he turned it upside down and jumped off.  It took me an embarrassingly long time to notice, but eventually it occurred to me that he was jumping off the bucket and swimming for about 4 feet.  In a nice tidy dog paddle.  Well, that was the beginning & now he swims comfortably for about 10 feet before needing to put his feet down or grab onto my shoulder.  He's working on his diving and his back float.  He's had his first experience swimming independently in the ocean (playing a frightening for mama game called "rescue", where he dumped himself - without warning - off of his boogie board and would fight the waves to swim to me or Sky). 

Backfloat!

 

I take from my boys and their adventures in swimming a few lessons about learning, individual timing, and faith. When Sky was 3, I couldn't have imagined him the same child who I struggle to keep up with as we swim.  I am reminded that my job is to give them opportunities, and then the space and time to explore on their own.  Gryffin's self-taught swimming reminds me that the explorations that make me nervous may be the exact exploration they need to move forward.  I take in the lesson that sometimes they learn more if I'm not watching.  My boys continue to teach me to have faith in them,in their process and pace.  I take from them a reminder that children are not taught.  Children learn.  And that when the timing is right that learning happens effortlessly, and with joy.