September in the Rain

It's another rainy day here. I've been thinking a lot about work/rest rhythms (something my church talks about...and my husband's employer).  In our culture, work reigns supreme.  If you aren't stressed enough, you must not have worked hard.  But what is work for a child?  This popped up on my Facebook feed earlier:

"Play is often talked about as if it were relief from serious learning.  But for children, play is serious learning.  Play is the work of childhood." -Fred Rogers

My kids play a lot, especially my three youngest.  They are busy.  Their minds are moving a mile a minute.  They create, run, fight bad guys, fly, embark on adventures, raise children, cook meals...all in a day's work.

And I work.  I cook, I clean, I exercise.  The kids join me in these things too; sometimes because they want to, sometimes because I ask.  There are no set times for these things.  They happen as we go, as they need to.  If the sink is full, the dishes get done. If we're hungry, we eat.

It's the same with rest.  We have no set time for rest, though I see the value in it.  My younger son needs a nap every day, and my younger daughter can usually use one too.  I know they need rest when I see it in their eyes or in their behavior.  And I know when I need rest too.

Rather than telling them to nap, I've been trying to invite them into rest, just like I invite them into other things that I do.  Today I told them, "I need to lie down, and I think you might too!"  My little guy goes down without much fuss.  In fact, he likes for two baby gates to be placed in his doorway, one stacked on top of the other.  Must make him feel secure in some way.  My five year old tells me she doesn't need to lie down, and that she will play in her room quietly.  Sometimes she does.  Today she crawled into bed with me.  My older kids will usually do something quiet, like write or draw, or play cards.

Not planning this opens us up to participate in opportunities outside of our home, like field trips, or parties.  If they fall asleep in the car on the way to or from another place, that's okay.  I know from my own experience that sometimes a ten minute nap can be more refreshing than two hours.  And they learn to roll with various circumstances that way.  Sometimes this might mean an earlier or later bedtime, and that's okay too.

Since we started unschooling the mantra that keeps running through my mind is this:

"'Everything is permissible'- but not everything is beneficial" -1 Corinthians 10:23a

This goes for kids too.  I'm not teaching them to have my idea of healthy rhythms.  I'm showing them how I have self-control, and respecting them enough to allow them to make these decisions based on their bodies' needs.

Today when Boo woke up at the foot of my bed I asked her, "Did you have a good nap?"
She sighed and said, "Yes."
"It feels good to let your body rest doesn't it?"
"Yeah."
And she'll remember that good feeling.

Good Vibrations

We've had a wonderful few weeks. My mother came into town, my girls started Girl Scouts, and our unschooler group went on our Not Back to School camping trip to Warren Dunes in Sawyer, Michigan. The passing of these events have marked the end of Summer for us. There's really no denying it as I watch the leaves fall in the backyard. But that's okay. There's something cozy about Fall. We had a lovely storm ring in the new season this morning. A nice day to sit, play card games, and drink hot peppermint tea.

I've realized these few weeks that we needed to deschool more than I'd originally thought. We remained so busy all Summer that once it came down to thinking about "schoolish" things again, I found I just couldn't gather my thoughts. Some wonderful friends gave me good advice to just take it slow, and spend one on one time with each child every day. So that's our starting point. I did get our Life of Fred Butterflies book out today to read with the two oldest kids, and that was about as schoolish as we got. But it's a start.  I'm not in a hurry.  In fact, in my lack of structure lately, my kids have spent plenty of time playing video games, but something was even birthed from that for my son.  He began telling his dad and I tonight about a comic book series he wants to begin writing.  The wheels are already turning for him.

I think the best part about this time is observing and taking note of the blessings that come with this lifestyle.  My son is so happy.  He smiles all the time now.  I had wondered at one point if he would ever be a happy child, and now he is.  Life doesn't have to be so complicated.  There's no race to any imagined finish line.  We're all here in this together, and there is space for peace and growth.

And I am growing.  There are so many things I thought I'd never be able to accomplish since having kids because in my mind there were just too many things we had to get done.  But nothing is so pressing now that I don't have room to pursue my interests too.  On my "Bucket List", so to speak, for a long time had been learning to crochet, to sew, play guitar, and get healthy.  Last Spring I taught myself to crochet, last week my neighbor, some friends and I started making strides toward the goal of getting healthy (hopefully resulting in an unschooling 5K team in the coming months), and tonight I began learning to play my grandfather's guitar.  I've started all of these things before. Now I'm able to actually follow through.

Living this lifestyle is a breath of fresh air.  It may seem directionless to some, but it's actually a wide open field with many paths that overlap.  It's a very happy time for my kids and me.  I'm so thankful that we decided to jump in with both feet.

Summertime

What a crazy fast, whirlwind summer we've had!  I really don't know how it's September already.  We played hard, took a couple of vacations out of state, and found some fun local stuff to do too.

Vacationing with small kids can be hard.  Much of is it just plain work.  But today I finally unloaded all of our pictures and was delighted to see that amidst all the craziness, we really did have a lot of fun!

We started with a trip to Chicago.  We got killer deals on City Passes, and being always on the lookout for educational experiences, I decided the most logical idea was to cram four museums into three days. Ha!  Sounds nuts, but we had great fun during the day.  Nights, not so much, but that's what we get for sharing a single room with four children.  (Never again!)  We visited the Field Museum, Shedd Aquarium, Adler Planetarium, and Museum of Science and Industry.  We are incredibly blessed to live so close to such amazing places!

But we live even nearer to some other places of interest.  The Studebaker Museum is basically in our backyard.  We were invited to go with some new friends one day a couple of weeks ago, and had a great time absorbing some local history.  We even got to see the car from The Muppet Movie!

Finally we just got back from Cedar Point.  This is totally my husband's thing.  He is a bona fide, self-proclaimed roller coaster geek.  Every year we go, and every year I walk around in circles ruing the day we bought those darned tickets.  But even in my misery, the kids so enjoy their over-priced carnival rides, so as a mother you just grin and bear it, right?

What's neat about Cedar Point that even appeals to me is their Dinosaurs Alive! exhibit.  Very cool and humbling to see life-sized dinos up close and personal.  I loved that Punk got to see what Sue from Field Museum would have looked like!

What I love more than anything, though, is the little learning moments here and there that aren't scheduled.  Boo loves to touch and smell everything she comes into contact with. Her curiosity is precious.  Coming out of a toll road rest stop she just had to stop and feel a pillar.  We took just a few minutes and compared the feel of the bricks, mortar, cement, and caulk.  While leaving the hotel one day we observed a katydid climbing the wall.  On the path to see the dinosaurs she stopped to touch a grasshopper.  Little moments that mean a lot.  Perhaps those brief memories will live on in her mind.  Who knows what memories will stick?

Another impromptu lesson was Dude asking to use my camera at the park.  There are no automatic settings on my "good camera".  It's all manual.  So I showed him how to use it as well as I could in the short time we had while his sisters and brothers were on a ride.  I set the ISO and aperture for him, and he set to figuring out the shutter speed.  After a few tries, he didn't do too shabby!

All in all, great times were had.  Memories were made.  We invested time in one another.  And the fun in the sun isn't over yet!  Monday is my birthday (yay!), Thursday is Punk's birthday (whaaah!) and in a week and a half we'll go camping with our unchooling friends.  The latter promises to provide some good photo ops as most of us are inexperienced campers!  Ha!  Until next time...

The Times They Are a-Changin'

Since we've been deschooling and drifting into unschooling I've already noticed some pretty great differences in the way our day to day life looks.  Here are a handful of things that have stuck out to me.

*Mealtimes are a joint effort.  In the past I would make one thing and one thing only.  If my kids wanted it, great.  If not, they wouldn't eat.  Today for lunch I made myself a spinach quesadilla.  Bebe (7) made Punk (2) a "peanut butter taco".  Boo Boo (5) made herself a peanut butter sandwich.  Dude (9) and Bebe requested egg sandwiches.  While my quesadilla was in the oven, I fried up some eggs, and they took care of making the sandwiches themselves.  They all poured themselves their own milk and I got Punk's for him.  It's like a well-oiled machine.  No fighting.  No tears.  Just everyone doing for themselves or others.

*We have time.  We have time for reading together.  We have time to do chores at relaxed pace.  We have time to play games.  There isn't a whole lot of "We'll do that after..."  Of course, things still come up, but for the most part we're free to be doing whatever we please.  The other day we were invited on an impromptu outing to a local museum and we just went!  The fast-paced life we'd created is slowing down and we're able to just be and enjoy each other's company.

*I don't yell.  I don't need to yell.  Now that I've had the ability to sit back and realize that most of my NOs were out of frustration or unwarranted, the need for yelling has gone away.  And if I do ever have to yell, they will know it's for a really good reason.

*Dude is happy.  This is my introverted child, the one people were concerned about at a very young age because he was "too shy" or wouldn't "make eye contact", the one who almost certainly had ADHD, the one who cried through lessons daily.  He smiles.  His outbursts are less frequent.  The other day he jumped into my dad's lap, all 80 lbs. of him, squeezing his neck and rocking, saying, "I love my Papa!"  He's taken on some responsibility for his siblings without me asking.  He asks a lot of questions and tells me all about what he's been reading.  He hugs me often.  He is a different boy.  That alone is priceless.