So, I decided to homeschool my 8 year old this year.
Her school wasn’t offering distance learning,
and I didn’t feel comfortable with a 5-day-a-week plan quite yet, so I decided to homeschool her, instead.
Paige has always been extra attached to me.
Even before any of this happened she was doing everything she could do everyday to stay home.
Feigning illness, forcing a fake cough, dramatic sudden limping, draping herself over furniture surfaces saying that she just couldn’t go on.
I remember the time she had stayed home one day saying that she didn’t feel well.
When my husband got home from work, and asked her why she had stayed, she told him it was because her stomach hurt.
This would have been fine, and might have passed as legit, if not for the fact that she had done air quotes while saying “stomach hurt.”
Even with this pattern of behavior, though, I was surprised with her exuberance when I presented the idea of homeschooling for the year to her,
and she leapt off the couch shouting,
“Yes! Yes! I want to do that!”
Sure, she’s exuberant.
She hates getting dressed.
She hates being told her shoes need socks underneath.
She is a born warrior child who would just as soon wear a loin cloth and crouch wild-headed in the deep woods as she would wear a pair of structured pants.
She probably thinks this is us forming our own tribe.
The homeschool program coordinator seemed excited, too, as we met in the school office yesterday.
Her face bright, and ready to impart.
Mine, wondering what on earth I thought I was even doing with any of my life at this point.
My husband, Justin, had informed me he would leave work early to make it to the meeting.
I was shocked at this news, being that he’s never seemed very interested in really diving in to help with school.
I handle most school meetings alone.
Normally it’s me eating my own hair at our dining room table, trying to help make a seventh grade math model that I don’t understand.
Normally it’s me wading waist-deep through weeds to pick flowers for some science display board that’s due in less than 6 hours.
Normally it’s my head that is spinning over due dates while his lays watching old episodes of The Office from the couch.
The homeschool coordinators acted very impressed to hear that a dad was coming to our meeting, too.
I informed them that it was probably because he was on a short course of steroids for a medical issue he is having, because those things really fire him up.
His excitement probably more side-effect than newly-turned leaf.
Believe me.
His pupils aren’t always that large.
The last time he had to be on steroids I found him organizing and color-coding my closet completely unsolicited at 11:45pm.
Yes, he came in to sit beside me at that homeschool meeting, but I needed to stay focused.
This was not the time to get lulled into any kind of false sense of security that he will somehow be “helping with homeschool.”
I will be the one responsible for serious home education, and yes, there may be a *slight* divergence into a course on 90’s rap lyrics, or giving good, form foot massage, but most of the time I plan on all business.
My Game Face has to stay on.
I left that school meeting fairly confident,
but within just a few hours had three times spilled food or coffee on the same exact place on my brand new shirt.
And not in the center, as would be more acceptable, but more in the clavicle are of my right side,
where no food or drink has any right to be.
My obvious flaws there, perched on my shoulder,
like some kind of Parrot of Imperfection squawking it’s jabs at me.
As I dabbed my shirt for the third time I thought,
“How am I supposed to HOMESCHOOL A CHILD when I am this type of person?!
The type that has to apply Dawn in a circular motion to their SHOULDER three times in the same day?
How am I to be the one that instills any kind of knowledge?
Will she be ruined?
How is this about to go?”
My thoughts spiraled in rhythm with that Dawn.
I thought about this warrior child in question, and how during my meeting I’d thought how disappointed she would be to learn that the homeschool curriculum I was choosing did not have one mention of weaponry training, archery, or even the HINT of any kind of secret quest.
I contemplated my own inadequacies, perpetual feeling of being unprepared,
and my long list of fears;
And then I did a thing that changed my day:
I scrolled back through my Facebook memories.
I found there a post I’d written 4 years ago,
on that same exact day.
The post was Paige telling me she was going to drop out of school,
saying she didn’t “meed” school anymore, even though she was just in TK.
When I had asked her what she planned to do with only a TK level education,
she had taken my face in both of her hands and said the words that got me,
“Don’t worry, Mama. We’ll fink of fings.”
And thought of things, I have.
For all of the years from that day to this one.
I’ve thought of things to help kids raise grades when they’ve struggled in school.
I’ve thought of things to say when they have expressed emotional wrinkles I don’t quite know how to smooth out.
I’ve thought of solutions to arguments,
a hundred Plan B’s,
and new ways to look at so many things.
For months now I’ve thought of creative things to do to keep them busy.
I’ve thought of how to keep us all from going insane.
I am their Mama, and
Mamas think of things.
We make a plan and move forward day after day.
Suddenly I was remembering something I’d said to a friend last year when she had decided to homeschool, too.
She had been worried about if she was making the right choice, and I had grabbed her shoulders and said,
“You can choose this for now and see how it goes.
No choice you make has to be for keeps.
If you try it and it doesn’t work, you can change it and try something else.
We do our best.
None of this is set in stone.”
In that exact moment, I had my answer, as I sat scrolling through my posts.
Answered from before I’d even had the question.
Waiting for when I’d need that answer most.
This season is hard for so many reasons.
So many decisions we each have to make.
No situation the exact same.
None of us with all the answers.
We do our best, we hold our breath,
we whisper a prayer, and we leap.
Some things seem scary.
Maybe we feel unsure.
Maybe we feel partnered in some things just for show.
But Four Year Old Paige just reminded Forty-Three year old me that
we are capable of so much more than we know.
I chose a photo for this piece that I’ve used once before.
A fortune that my daughter once unrolled at a time in our lives when trust and hope were almost literally all we had.
Blindly fumbling, much like today.
On the day she unwrapped that small slip of paper its timing struck me so powerfully.
I’ll never forget her holding up
“Proceed with confidence.”
I cling to those same words still, to this day.
Again I have to trust.
Again I have hope.
I will “Fink of fings”
no matter what comes my way.
This article was written by a guest blogger. The opinions expressed here are those of the writer and do not reflect the opinions of Bob Lacey, Sheri Lynch or the Bob & Sheri show.
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.
