It’s been two full years of homeschooling her now;
A thing I said I could never do.
I imagined it would be chalk-full of things like floor-length jean skirts, FLDS hairstyles, and a long, knotted rope or two, with a trigger finger on a label making machine.
I knew those things just weren’t for me.
I looked at the bright-eyed, born-this-way homeschool moms, excited about so many enrichment opportunities and thought, “Oof, Honey. You do you.”
Laminated chart walls make me feel kind of defensive.
I like Netflix a LOT, and my bed is only sometimes made.
I have never once been able to make my eyes sparkle when someone mentions making a tri-fold poster for State History Day.
So, if you had told me two years ago that I would be finishing up my second year of homeschooling my 10 year old daughter, Paige, I would have laughed at you, and checked if you were febrile.
Homeschooling was my Nineveh, I said.
Sitting at my dining room table teaching an annoyed fourth grader long division?
The thought of it makes my breathing funny.
I’d just as soon be swallowed by a whale.
But then the pandemic hit, and she absolutely hated the zooms.
She would groan, and crumple onto the couch in a crying heap.
I made the choice to try homeschooling her “just until she could go back safely,” to save her from doing them, and hopefully also keep her out of Covid’s reach.
I wasn’t expecting how we’d both love the freedom of homeschool days, and how we’d get ourselves in a groove.
There have been parts of it that I have truly adored.
I love hearing her talking about some fact or concept, knowing I’m the one that taught it to her.
After a year of doing it, I was surprised when she didn’t want to go back to regular school.
She asked for another year of homeschooling, and now here we are nearing the end of year two.
I, Kerri Green, HAVE taught long division at my dining room table.
(Someone should probably jump on making the parade float)
Home was her safe space when the world felt completely on end.
She was only in second grade the last time she set foot in a school building,
and from second grade to fifth grade is a pretty big development leap.
It’s just been me and her in a long stretch of days.
Sometimes I worry she won’t remember at all what to do, or how to be when she’s back in a classroom.
I imagine her going back and worrying over things like where to put her backpack.
I wonder if she’ll raise her hand when she needs to know something, or just conceal it as a pit in her stomach.
I hope she won’t eat her lunch alone, or feel like an outsider.
I visualize so many things.
I’ve seen her withdraw, though, in these last two years.
The trauma has subtly changed her.
She is quieter; playing her video games with her headphones on, out in the yard alone with only her thoughts and the dog, and the hours.
It’s as if she doesn’t trust anything at all sometimes now except her own judgment,
and, on a good day, maybe also me.
She’s been through wildfire evacuations, explosions, floods, and now a pandemic.
Understandably, few places felt safe to be.
Because of this change in her, normally my brave, warrior child, now often one that needs some beckoning, I have realized the need for her to return to school, where she can make new friends.
(When they draw themselves inward, sometimes you have to help them stretch back out their wings)
I’ve done all I could to shield her, and protect her.
It’s time for her to remember flying free.
A little nudge.
An “I’m still right here.”
An “It’s OK. I promise. You will see.”
Every discussion we’ve had about a return to regular school has ended in tears.
The unknown can be scary at any age.
I hear her words and in them see my own self even now.
What if no one likes me?
What if I make a mistake or don’t know how to do something?
She doesn’t know anyone at this new school yet.
She’s worried she’ll cry and everyone will laugh.
Her stress is evident.
I know the bottom line of her worries is what will she do in a big, scary world without me.
I promise her she will do great, and kids will OBVIOUSLY love her.
“What’s not to love about YOU?!”
She smiles with eyes that still look concerned and doubtful.
I know the exact look that says she is scared she will give over her shoulder as I drop her off on her first day of school.
She is scared to step out, scared of all that will be different, scared to fail.
I don’t tell her I also wonder what I’ll do without her here with me.
When Paige was just two months old, my doctors discovered that I had a blood clot stretching from just above my knee up all the way into my abdomen.
It was the largest blood clot five doctors had ever seen.
The terror I felt as they stood over me whispering was indescribable.
I lay in a hospital bed for days alone being treated and scanned, crying, worrying that I had just had a baby whose life I may never live to see.
The months following, as my body healed were spent almost solely sitting in our big blue recliner, clinging to a newborn her, barely able to move from the fear and pain.
Day after day we sat there,
just my beautiful new baby girl, my fear of dying, and me.
Those months of holding her when everything else felt shaky bonded us in a way unique to just us two.
Ever since she was born we have been a little two-person team.
She’s my last little one.
Each “first” for her, for me is a “last time.”
The grief in that fact trails like a vapor behind me.
She’s the last one who still holds my hand when we walk down the street, and she doesn’t yet care about who sees.
I can’t tell her how my heart clings to her, too, while she has been busy clinging to me.
I am scared to step out, scared of all that will be different, scared to fail.
It’s time for us both to let some fears go, though.
Mine of facing a house that’s silence will feel suddenly deafening,
hers of all of the unknown; A stretching.
But, it’s time for me to nudge her a little, even if the hand that nudges is shaking.
It’s time to help her learn to step out from her comfort zone, and realize all she is capable of.
Oh, for them to see themselves the way that we see…
Paige is so far from an average girl.
She is a no-ruffles kid. A band T-shirt kid.
Mud on her face, and often desperately in need of a comb.
I thought she was coming up the path crying today and went running to her, but she just laughed and told me that was actually her screech-singing “Back in Black” by AC/DC.
She plays the drums, and whittles spears, and loves skateboarding and karate.
Play with a doll? She’d rather be digging a hole.
Her biggest fear about a new school has been “What if there is no one like me?”
She knows she stands out.
I know it’ll take until she’s older to learn the beauty of individuality.
There IS no one just like her.
She is rare, and she is special.
I will count it one of my life’s greatest treasures that I got to witness her become.
Weeks ago, her homeschool coordinator mentioned that she has been tutoring a little girl in math that is in Paige’s same grade and goes to the new school she will be attending.
She commented on thinking Paige might like her, and suggested that maybe I’d like to bring Paige over for a co-tutoring session for the purpose of just letting her get to know this little girl.
She thought that when she went to school next year she’d feel grateful to look into the sea of strangers and be able to recognize at least one friendly face.
After much prodding and convincing, Paige finally agreed to go, and a couple of weeks ago
I led her up the driveway to the coordinator’s house, noticing the way she swallowed hard, and bit her lip, nervous about just who she would meet, and how she would be recieved.
We arrived first, and were there two very anticipatory minutes when suddenly the doorbell rang,
and when the door opened I smiled at what I saw, immediately feeling a sense of relief,
because the little girl had a skateboarding patch on her backpack.
I could tell from the moment I laid eyes on her,
“She’s one of us,” I smiled.
I glanced down at Paige to make sure that she saw what I did.
She was already grinning up at me.
The girl’s clothes were also not ruffled, pink, or lacy.
She had a black baseball hat on over hair that had colored streaks, and she looked kind of sparkly-eyed and feisty, and that is our favorite kind, honestly.
The look in Paige’s own eyes was evident.
Maybe it would be alright after all.
Maybe there WAS a whole world, not ruined by trauma and disaster out there worth seeing with other kids out there like her.
Maybe she could step into this upcoming season of unknowns standing up straight and tall.
I sat on the couch in a side room as they had their first meeting, watching her profile through a door of windows that divided us.
What I saw was a little girl excited to have met a new friend.
What I saw through the window was her Possibilities Face.
I watched through that glass as HOPE was born.
I did live to see my baby grow,
and I will keep watching, cheering, clinging, and releasing her to fly over and over for the rest of my days.
Maybe I will walk into my own next phase braver, ever inspired by her,
remembering that when you walk forward with someone you love engraved on your heart like the two of us forever on each other’s will be,
you never walk into your next phase alone.
Mom Outnumbered
Hi! My name is Kerri Green; Wife to Justin, and mother to four highly entertaining daughters -Alena, Chloe, Tessa, and Paige. I am an artist, a writer, a daycare provider, a lover of people, a believer that there is humor and beauty in all things, and the author of Mom Outnumbered; a blog about real family life, and my observations of it. My goal is to make people laugh, to be there for them when they cry, and most importantly, to let them know that they are not at all alone in this up and down world. I live with my family in Sebastopol California, and I am opening the window into our life. So welcome! Come in. Sit down. Just please don’t mind the mysterious wet spots.
