I have a few New Year’s resolutions, some private, and a few that anyone may know:
1. No cell phone use when a family member is in the room. If I have to look at my phone with family, keep it to necessary correspondence and get off quickly.
2. Read every day.
3. Learn family members’ cell phone numbers.
4. Write to my grandmother once a month.
The library is my friend when I need to simplify concepts in science for Mark. I am teaching him from a high school textbook because it gives us a structure and helps him learn to analyze graphs and data. Many weeks we just use the book as a guide and seek material at the library to make it more interesting.
I love to pick up books of colorful microscope images. Our world is intricate and beautiful at every level. Mark and I spent a few extra days studying microorganisms through art. This is a collage of diatoms, which are single-celled and diverse, representing 10,000 species. They are producers, which mean they photosynthesize and are an important food source in aquatic environments. We couldn’t get over how colorful, intricate, and symmetrical their silica shells look under a microscope.
To do this project, we pulled out papers we had painted before, cut them into shapes, added more color with pencils, and made an Eric Carle style collage. Eric Carle art is something I have done for years with the kids because it is fool-proof. Every collage is a success.
Each morning I get up to say goodbye to two of my boys as they go to school. I don’t love that part of my day. I clean the kitchen and wake up Mark, and home school begins.
I have no amazing educational activities to post, but I teach him every day. He reads a lot; I read to him. There are library trips where we fill the book bag until it is so heavy that I can hardly carry it. We talk as he does math problems and I let him doodle on his assignments. I ask him to write essays and book reports, label maps, and write history summaries. There are drawings, diagrams, and charts for science. Some grammar exercises are really difficult for me, and I don’t have a teacher’s edition. In fact, I erase Paige’s old 5th grade workbook so Mark can reuse it, one or two pages each day. There are spelling words to learn and cursive handwriting to practice. Sometimes he has a terrible attitude about writing. Some days it takes hours to do what should take 20 minutes. Sometimes I fall asleep when I am reading aloud to him or I get a phone call from someone who is upset and I ignore him for 20 minutes. We take a break from each other at lunch time.
We have this whole school life that no one really acknowledges. Even I don’t talk or write about it most of the time. But it’s my life’s work, however unseen and unrecognized. We simply sit in the basement, surrounded by books and colored pencils, studying and writing.
Today I remind myself that the small, consistent efforts in life are the the most real, because they make us who we are.
Richard’s work party was held last Friday evening at a local theme park. Richard was out of town, so we went without him.
We gathered from the far reaches of our current domains to be together. Paige came up from school in Provo and we met Daniel at his job in Murray. Timothy turned down two invitations from friends to be with us. Mark skipped a baseball practice.
After much ado, we were together, driving up I-15 in the old black minivan. I switched songs on the radio based on the commentary from the back seats. Finally, we resorted to the classical station, only to hear Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, its pensive notes contrasting with the mood of the evening. Timothy made a joke about roller coasters in slow motion to match the melody and we all laughed, the frustrations and responsibilities of the day sliding off and revealing a truer version of ourselves.
During that drive, a familiar feeling came to my heart. I felt as I did during our drives in Arizona, seeking homeschool adventure in our old van, years ago. Triggered by the old, well-trod pattern togetherness, we laughed as we heard Timothy and Daniel’s protests against Adele’s songs on every radio station. The voices were deeper and no one was strapped in a car seat, but some essential feeling had come back during the drive.
It made me wonder if I will ever love a stage of life as much those years when we ran around the desert together. It made me sad that I hated the desert so much when we lived there. I didn’t appreciate what a gift that isolation was to our family. I always loved time with the kids, but who knew the backdrop of our adventures would also hold my heart? When will my point of reference for “wonderful” move to a new period in our lives?
I have changed during these four years, living in the mountains. I don’t lead out in adventures with the kids as I used to. Did I impart all my courage to them, or have I redirected my courage to other areas? I have always lived with big fears, but they, too seem to change. A new fear is that the best days with the kids all together are over.
I want to remember this night because it reminded me that despite all that has changed, some essence of our family dynamic remains strong. We still love our times together. I want it to be enough to know that, despite the reality that similar days are rare.
The late summer twilight-lit faces, spinning and rushing through the park that night are a memory I hope will join the ranks of the good old days when I look back on it, years from now. By then, I trust that these bittersweet thoughts will be dulled by time and experience and new joys. The light really was golden on this evening, perfect for capturing and framing good memories.
She’s back at BYU. They’re back in the hallways and classrooms. Mark and I are back in session with home schooling. This transition to school felt pretty easy this year. No one started a new school, moved, or needed a lot of clothing and books.
It’s been a few years since I have been in this state about sending kids away each day to school,
and I am very thankful that I can teach Mark at home. I have tried to write this post several times since school started, but I learned that I don’t want to share much on this topic. I feel these milestones and beginnings deeply. I feel my differences in approach strongly at this time of year. So be it.
The boys have reached some milestones and there have been a few nice windows into their lives recently. I am thankful for the things they have experienced during this school year, from academics and new responsibilities, to music, art, and friendships.
Daniel’s independence has always been high, but driving to school and up the freeway to work each day really seals it. He is a good listener and a steadying influence among his friends. It was a very different experience to send him to prom than it was to send Paige. I was glad to have the kids spend some time at our house after the dance.
Timothy is 4-5 inches taller than he was last August. He is a true friend. The way he wears his sleeves at his concerts is just. too. cool.
Mark finished his 4th grade math and grammar over a month ago, so we forge ahead in the 5th grade books, even though we’d both rather be doing other things. He earned his Bear and we bought the big Webelos handbook so we are ready for new challenges.
2006-2012
The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum
In 2005 the realtor who listed our home in Austin recommended that we try the Arizona Sonoran Desert Museum once we moved to Tucson. This was great advice. Going to the Desert Museum became a pattern in our lives while we lived in Arizona. It was the place we tried to take all of our guests; it was fun for kids and parents. It was one of my go-to home school field trip destinations. We went there several times a year.
A trip to the Desert Museum was a sensory feast. After driving 20 minutes on the freeway and other busy roads, we turned onto a narrow, winding road. Rock shops appeared along the road as other signs of civilization dwindled. We drove another 15 minutes among cliffs and ancient saguaros, tall and haunting. Not only was the road winding and narrow, it had great dips and inclines, making it feel like a roller coaster if we took the curves and dips with some acceleration. The van would fill with squeals of laughter as stomachs dropped with the dips and turns. The smell of sunblock floated in the air as the kids prepared for the day in the sun. I could look back and see children’s eyes wide with excitement. Sometimes they would raise their hands high above their heads for the declines and quick ascents. I’d turn up the music.
We always started the day early, arriving at the Desert Museum as it opened. I loaded our green stroller with water bottles, snacks, hats, the camera bag, sunblock, and notebooks. It was quite a production, setting out for a day in this mostly outdoor museum. It grew hot quickly, so we followed a path where we knew we could find shade at the hottest parts of the day. The “museum” felt mostly like a walk in the desert with occasional docents along the way holding birds, skulls, or other desert animals. There were enclosures for animals, but only a few structures that provided shade.
Our favorite attractions were in the summer, when the butterfly gardens were teeming with caterpillars and butterflies and the monsoon rains had awakened the flowers. We avoided school field trip days by going in the summer, too. Sometimes we would stop to sketch the hummingbirds or linger and watch the desert tortoises in the early part of the day. By 10:00, we were usually very warm and we would make our way to the pavilions with air conditioning and then the ice cream parlor built out on the trail. The ice cream cones always seemed like manna, and I didn’t care that it was only 10 am because it made the grumpiness disappear.
There were mammals, reptiles, insects, spiders, monkeys, and birds to see. Our favorite animal was probably the mountain lion that had a cave where it would sleep, its face sometimes pressed up against the window for the kids to admire closely.
The mountain lion was always at the end of our ability to cope with the heat, so we would head up the hill toward the cave for the rest of the day. The cave was man-made, and you entered on a paved path. Inside there were exhibits about space and volcanoes, rocks, and minerals. Best of all, there were tunnels going off the main path for the kids to explore. These cave-like tunnels were narrow, smooth with wear, and a little smelly with mildew and stale people smells. Those who braved these narrow passageways were rewarded with a view of cave formations, great stalactites and stalagmites illuminated in golden light. I would sit at the base of these tunnels on a rock and let the kids wander and play for about an hour, hearing their happy voices echo through the corridors.
The final leg of our journey took us out of the cave past a “mine tailings” exhibit where kids could search the gravel for shiny, colored rocks. Each guest was allowed to keep one or two rocks. Serious thought went into these choices. Pockets were emptied on flat surfaces and the rocks were admired, but in the end, only a few would become ours. We stored our treasure rocks in the small compartment in our stroller. One last stop before the big hill to the parking area was the excavation area where kids would put on goggles and chip off plaster from around “fossils” of ancient animals.
The snake and insect houses were either first or last, as they were located at the entrance. I don’t know if the kids remember these exhibits as much, but there were Gila monsters, scorpions that glowed under a black light, and rattlesnakes.
The end of a trip to the Desert Museum always felt like a triumph, having conquered the elements with every device we had. The drive home often included a trip to the McDonald’s drive up window on the fringe of civilization. It was hard work being desert explorers, but we loved it. If I could go back to Tucson for a few days, I would take the kids back to this magical place. Their longer, lankier bodies may not fit so easily in the cave, and some of that wonder of childhood would be gone, but I know that they would have fun. It was ALWAYS a good day at the Desert Museum. How many things in life are like that?
We were at the community library meeting room and we were celebrating a milestone for Paige and another boy who had just finished 8th grade in home school. Friends gathered to watch Paige play the piano and the boy sing. It was an exciting but vulnerable day for me, showing the efforts we had made in home education to the public. We invited friends and had cake and punch. Paige and the boy had each prepared an elaborate display of their school experiences and talents.
There were probably 25 people in attendance, and a guest approached me after the program during refreshments. She was in her late 60’s and introduced herself by saying her name and that she was a supporter of public school.
Okay, I thought. Here comes the conversation I had dreaded, the conversation that I feared would come in a public place. I had avoided most stores and restaurants with my children during school hours for 9 years so this wouldn’t happen. I knew that I was going to be accused of neglect or selfishness or coddling, by a stranger. I was literally backed up against a wall as she told me what she thought of home education.
She voiced her ideas. I responded in a calm way. We both came away from the conversation with something to think about. I was devastated by what she said to me, even if it wasn’t a new argument. I think it was just the wrong place for her to initiate such a conversation.
I felt numb for weeks after this. Her words hurt because she believed that I was “anti-community.” I had always believed that raising children and teaching them well was the best way to build a community. She didn’t know me. She didn’t know that I communicated with 70 families over a large area to see that our children were out of the house doing PE, academic activities, art classes, field trips, and service projects. She didn’t know that I was a volunteer science teacher and that we maintained a community pond. She didn’t know that I ran a Cub Scout program for children from any school background. Her words hurt because I was feeling vulnerable when she said them. Her words hurt because she voiced her concern to me in public. What should have been a celebratory day became one of the worst days of my life. It’s taken me many years to be able to write about it.
As we drove home from the event, the song, “Don’t Rain on My Parade” from Funny Girl came to my mind. It became my theme song when I dealt with criticism. I’ve played it many times over the years with the volume turned up high.
For eleven consecutive years I was an unconventional parent and home schooled my kids. Then I took a break and picked it up again for Mark in elementary school. It was okay with me if people disagree with my decisions. Through these years of being unconventional, I have learned that even when you disagree with someone, it’s possible offer untainted compliments and support.
People often told me horror stories about home school families or would begin a compliment about my child with the phrase, “I don’t agree with home schooling, but…” When this happened, it was hard for me to find the compliment clothed in criticism. I learned not to bring up home education to most people I knew. It was just too complicated.
To show support, some people offered to teach my kids a skill such as painting or foreign language, withholding any hint of disapproval. I took up anyone’s offer to help. I was very open to learning experiences outside the home. Some people would give simple compliments, such as, “Your son was polite to me today. Thank you for training him so well,” or, “I noticed you and your kids working on the community pond. Thank you.” I didn’t want them to tell me that home schooling was good or bad. I wanted to hear that my kids were good.
As much as I love compliments, I learned to function without the approval of others during those years. During this time of being unconventional, I learned that there is more than one way to raise a child well. I learned to respect different methods of teaching, raising children, and approaching a problem. I learned to trust the inspiration and direction from God that I received. Over the years I followed the thoughts that came to my mind that were not my own, including the phrase that came to my mind one day, “Send your children to public school this year,” followed by other specific instructions.
The lessons I learned during the home schooling years can’t be numbered, and the lesson about tolerance is an important one. I learned that it’s important to show respect and support for earnest efforts in parenting. I try to do this by focusing on positive things and giving pure compliments and encouragement, untainted by disapproval. If all I can say to a parent is, “I love your children,” that is enough. And if someone is having a celebration for an accomplishment or milestone, my goal is to never rain on someone’s parade.
Mark and I continued our quest to see new Utah counties by visiting Wasatch County. We went to Midway and Heber. It was a lot colder there than in Salt Lake and we drove past a small ice castle at the Homestead that was pretty. The Midway ice castle display wasn’t open when we were there. The Heber Railroad is closed most of January so we added that to our list of things we want to do another day.
Mark liked the Jordanelle Reservoir in its frozen beauty. We visited the Homestead Caldera and would have gone swimming except I can’t find my suit. So we just touched the warm water and said we will come back another day.
Richard finished his scuba training at the caldera just a few months ago and can’t wait to go back. In contrast, I can’t swim but have made a resolution to change that this year. Lucky me, life vests are required in the caldera.
Wasatch County is a beautiful place. Mark liked the old fashioned houses and all of the animal statuary in yards. I liked the tiny houses, too, and the ice skating rink in Midway called to me. How I love to skate.
Going on journeys to new places is one of my favorite things to do in “home” school.
This was a history journal entry that Mark wrote today about the Vikings. Notice that although he was pressed for time, he didn’t forget to mention an important fact about the Vikings’ place of origin.
Who Were the Vikings?
The Vikings were people who lived in Norway, Sweden, and Denmark.* When they couldn’t find fertile ground they started attacking the Franks.
When Charlemagne died, the kingdom split into 3 parts. That way the Vikings could attack them easier.
The Vikings used flat-bottomed boats, so they could go right up to land without bumping into the sand.
*the place where Lego was created