Simplifying

Minimalism vs. the six-year-old

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I have learned to let go a lot of needing things especially tidy.  Homeschooling three kids while owning two dogs and having a husband working from home means we live in this house; really live in it, day in and day out.  My focus on “less stuff” means things are definitely easier to keep clean and picked up.

And then there’s my youngest.   

My good friend was her pre-K/Kindy teacher, at a home-based Reggio-style program two mornings a week.  I was complaining to her about how different this one was from my other two.  “When the bigs played, they’d play with the Thomas the train set, or they’d play with Legos, or they’d play with the blocks…. when she plays, she plays with Thomas with the Legos with the blocks.”  My friend just chuckled a little and said, “Yeah, that’s very Reggio….sorry about that.”

I love to see her amazing creativity (truly; I love it).  But it is SO. HARD. for me to not swoop in every few days and put everything back where it belongs.  My current tolerance level is about two weeks, which honestly I feel is not unreasonable, especially since by then she’s usually wandered on to something else.  Right now we have Legos all over the dining room table (which I’ve had over a decade of practice with–that part’s fine by me). We have Thomas’s entire Island of Sodor in the middle of the living room floor, also including a handful of Legos, most of her fairy friends, and a friendly baby dragon.  The dollhouse is also in the living room and occasionally gets pulled into the story, too.  Her tiny bedroom stays clean for less than 24 hours at a time, because once it’s dealt with, it’s all open and lovely and she gets excited and immediately fills it up.  Last week she learned she could move her bed by herself; it’ll never be the same again…..

That room, mind you, is the same one I was in love with just a few years ago; so empty and inviting.  It’s amazing how things change once kids start developing their own opinions.  😉

In theory, we could move things out of her room.  I do, with some frequency.  But this is a child who, when deprived of paper, will simply use Kleenex, boxed for her convenience and sitting on her bookcase.

I’m having trouble balancing my Simplicity Parenting background with keeping her creativity fed and nourished.  I especially hate for her room to be so trashed, when I feel like it needs to be reasonably clean for her to sleep peacefully (nightmares two nights in a row has got me really focused on this right now).  I am someone constantly focused on simplifying and getting rid of stuff, and she is someone who seems happiest surrounded by stuff.  Trying to figure out how to coexist will be an adventure over the years!

Choosing Quiet

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We had an exceptionally quiet day today.

This week is just full enough that when my husband needed the car this afternoon, I declared it was a stay-at-home day, all day, for the rest of us.  It’s been so peaceful.

The weather has played a part….fall is remembering that it’s supposed to show up, and we’ve had the windows open and a cool breeze blowing in.  My youngest woke with a sweet spirit and discovered the coloring books a friend had passed on to me the night before, so we started our morning coloring at the sunny kitchen table.  Breakfast involved simply pushing our things to the side while she ate her toast.  It was so quiet she realized she could hear the squirrels’ feet as they scampered up and down the trees outside the window, much the same way she noticed the steam rising from her spoonful of oatmeal when she was four.

We counted the rainbows in the laundry room, cast by the crystal hanging in the window,  throwing colors in every direction.  We “caught” the rainbows in our hands. She decided it was time for some fall clothes, so we worked in her room a bit; putting away her summery sundresses, getting out her black buckle-up shoes.

She found a clouded sulphur butterfly in the yard, which led her to bring her Legos out onto the deck to play before lunch.

Now she’s playing peacefully in her room while she listens to an audiobook, and I am here.

I’m writing all this down because I want to remember it.  I want to remember that we are choosing differently, that we are living differently, and that we’re doing it on purpose.

While I colored with my little one early this morning, I got a phone call from a friend, apologizing for having to miss out on a gathering we’d been planning.  She’d forgotten a thing, she was double-booked, she was so sorry, she couldn’t make it.

And that’s fine.  Mistakes happen, I understand.

What’s funny to me is that this is the same person who gives me such grief when I say “no” to things.  I have, occasionally, mentioned Courtney Carver’s idea that I don’t say no because I’m too busy….I say no because I don’t want to be busy.  Of course!  She understands.  Completely.

Until the next time I choose not to do something.

That is her choice.  For my part, I will continue to pay attention to my family’s need for rest, especially during busy seasons.  I will keep taking lessons from my youngest, my Noticer.  I will keep choosing slow and steady over fast and furious; choosing different.

Choosing quiet.

My Paradox

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It is officially “nest” season over here again, this time with my six-year-old; the big kids have moved on.  I was watching her arrange blankets yesterday and it reminded me of this post.

Originally published June 12, 2012

I moved the living room furniture last week, pushing the sofa directly in front of our bay window.  (It’s air conditioner season here, so I don’t anticipate opening the window anytime soon.)  I was completely not expecting the enthusiastic response I got from both my kids, who appeared to be positively thrilled with the new arrangement.  My daughter was actually dancing around the room.  “Why?” I finally asked.  “Why do you like the furniture this way?”

“For our nest!!” my daughter announced.  And, yes, by the next afternoon there was a pile behind the sofa, and the spot was officially dubbed their “nest.”

There are no fewer than nine blankets and six pillows back there.  The amount of stuff in that nook, which is maybe eight feet at it’s very widest point (but it’s a bay, so it narrows to about 3 1/2′), looks ridiculous.  (Actually, to be honest, it looks quite comfy.)  All the blankets and pillows are tumbled and tossed together, in a jumble of chaos where the “dividing line” between my kids’ spaces is vaguely discernable by a color change:  one side is mostly blue, one side is mostly pink.  It’s the definition of “excess.”

But….

If one of the high points of my kids’ summer is the ability to make a “nest;” to snuggle in behind the sofa, in the dappled shade of the trees that grow just outside the window, and read a book; or to just hang out together (as they often do)…..then, isn’t that a definition of simplicity?

Connections

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Sometimes I think we make things too hard.

That statement covers a lot of ground; it’s one of the reasons I’ve been so focused on simplifying things in our home.  What I’m specifically thinking about right now, though, is finding connection with our kids.

All parents want to connect with their children, but I think homeschool parents have this added dose of…..something.  Maybe because we’re with them all the time, but are aware that time together does not necessarily equal true togetherness.  Maybe it’s the extra responsibility we feel that other parents don’t have, as we’ve committed to this whole “school” thing in addition to parenting.  Everywhere I turn, I’m being reminded that it’s all about the relationships.  

I think there’s this vague idea of what we want connection to look like–what it “should” look like.

  • Bonding over a read-aloud.
  • Discovering something new and unknown in the world around you, together.
  • Deep conversations over cocoa on a cold day (or over ice cream when it’s hot).

Something about all these ideas seems very serious and….I don’t know….intense.

What if it really was as simple as watching a movie?

What if you and your spouse pulled out the weirdest movie you both loved from years ago, warned the (big) kids repeatedly that they might not like it, explained that it really took a special sort of person to enjoy it…..and what if they loved it?

What if the 13-year-old “I don’t really ever laugh at movies, I just smile” couldn’t stop laughing?

What if the 15-year-old cynic laughed just as hard?

(Y’all….there was audible gasping.)

What to make of the ensuing conversation post-movie of the sheer ridiculousness of it all?

          Daughter, at the final, final scene:  What was that??

          Me:  That was the Space Shuttle built from household appliances taking off!

          Daughter:  NO!  Not that--I know what that was.  What was THAT?  That entire                                         movie? (Begins laughing uncontrollably)

What if you get up the next morning and discover the teens have usurped the six-year-old’s magnetic letters?  (This, by the way, was the inspiration for this post.)

What if, when they finally stumble out of bed the next morning, we are all still laughing?  Together?

It’s June, people, and I’m tired.  I”m tired of trying to evaluate every. single. thing my kids are doing to try and figure out if there’s some kind of educational value in it.  I’m tired of thinking about school and what school should look like and how much school is enough.  All I want, right now, is to simply connect with my kids.  To enjoy them.  To enjoy things together.

To laugh.  A lot.

 

 

*The movie in question is “Better off Dead.”  No need to go watch it….truly…..you might not like it.  It really takes a special sort of person to enjoy it. 😉

On Quitting

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Almost two years ago, we struggled with the possibility of changing churches.  When we moved here in 2008, we did a month or so of dreaded “church shopping” but landed somewhere fairly quickly; in a place that was ideal for that chapter of our lives.  Nine years later, they were undergoing staff changes and things started to feel….not-so-ideal.  Things honestly felt completely off.  Add to this an out-of-nowhere, very extreme moment of bullying that one of my kids experienced, and things were finally officially set in motion.  We were moving on.

Words from a friend, watching from the sidelines, still echo in my head:  “You can’t just leave every time you don’t like something.”

She was seeing a pattern.  Pull son from school (2013).  Pull family from church (2017).  And I was so unsettled, so frustrated about this whole church-thing, that I let those words cover me like a blanket; weighing me down with should’s and ought’s and what’s right and commitment.  I let that set up camp in my head for a good long time.

Now we’re a few years out, and with that distance I feel like I can see more clearly, breathe more freely, and maybe (possibly) judge more fairly.  That, and my husband just quit his job, so quitting is back on my mind.  Some things I’ve considered:

  1. If you are miserable somewhere, why would you not leave?
  2. If a place/thing is no longer working for you, and you have tried different options–unsuccessfully–for making it work, why would you not consider moving on/getting rid of it?
  3. Isn’t the feeling of fear (involved in not knowing the next step) a better feeling than despair/sadness/misery (involved in staying where you are, and continuing to do what you’re doing)?
  4. How long do you have to stay in a situation you hate before you’ve “paid your dues” and can move on free of guilt?  Is that really even necessary?
  5. Isn’t it possible to acknowledge, “I had (x) wonderful years here….now things have changed and it’s time to move on?”  Sunk-cost bias doesn’t always apply in life.
  6. I think, though, most importantly….Do I want to look back over my life and see large swaths of misery when I could have done something to change it?  If this is the only life we get, don’t I want to use it in a better way?

My husband’s job change only partially falls into this situation.  He has an idea and he’s ready to take the leap to start acting on it.  The Best Job in the World–which he pretty much had since 2013 as a work-from-home pharmacist–had been sliding toward a tolerable slog (okay, maybe not so tolerable) for about the past year.  The shift in how he spent his days made it easier to go ahead and quit (see #1).  Now we’re off on a new adventure, because (see #3).

Friends, there are plenty of things we don’t have control over in our lives.  Events large and small happen every day that we can’t do anything about.  Don’t we want to act on the things we can?  

I’m ending this post with the Serenity Prayer.  It applies here more than ever.

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.

–Reinhold Niebuhr

 

 

 

 

Goodbye, Christmas and 2018

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I was enjoying our Christmas tree in the dark of early morning, thinking that it’s a lot like me right now:  getting old, a little crooked, but still standing.  That tree has been with us since our first year of marriage, and stood in six different living rooms in six different towns.  It still seems to be ready for a few more Christmases.

I’m not entirely sure I’m ready for a few more Christmases like this last one.  It ended up as an article published at No Sidebar; you can read it here.

I’ll be enjoying our tree for a few more days.  I’ve left behind the must clean out Christmas by New Year’s! that I grew up with….especially once I realized it’s a lot easier to enjoy the Christmas pretties once the chaos of the season is over!

Hello, Fall

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We said good-bye to summer today.  Our temperamental weather took care of everything last night….no more mosquitoes, no more 90 degree days, no more air conditioning in October.  (October!  Gah!)

Thank goodness.

I will miss my flowers, though.  It was an exceptionally good year here for the garden…. so good I’m almost thinking I’m a gardener again.  (It helped that we didn’t have to take out any trees this year.)  I’m feeling the need to document what just ended.  It really was a beautiful summer.

As always, morning glories and moon flowers took over the deck railing.  My daughters have started helping me plant these every spring; the plants truly thrived this year.  It probably helped that I actually thinned them.  😉

The view out my kitchen door.  Even the houseplants were happy this year.

I took all three kids to pick out flowers this spring….every one of them chose petunias.  Oh, the petunias.  Those things I’d sworn I’d never grow again because they needed so much attention and upkeep….petunias do nothing to simplify your life lol.  But wow, were they lush over the summer.

And the Virginia Creeper I transplanted from my parents’ yard….the stuff I dug up and drove a half-hour away and dumped in the ground and promptly abandoned for a two- week-long trip….it took hold.  It’s happy.  Not huge yet, but it’s happy.

It was a good summer.  But I’m always ready for fall.

Do the hard thing

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I feel like I’m hearing a strange mix of frustration and apathy from people lately.  We seem to want to fuss and complain, but then just shrug our shoulders and mutter something like “meh–what’re ya gonna do?”

How about, do something?  Anything?

But it’s hard.

My kids’ sports schedule is out of control–the six-year-old doesn’t need to be on the ball field at 10:00 at night!  Do the hard thing.  Pull him.

My five-year-old still isn’t sleeping through the night…. Do the hard thing.  Start actively trying to solve the problem.  Baby steps.

I never get to see my kids anymore….their schedules are so booked!  Do the hard thing.  Say no.  Claim some margin for your family.

My phone is a constant distraction.  So turn it off.  Find an hour (or fifteen minutes!) that you can live without it, and live without it.

Last year at this time we were struggling with staying at our church or finding a new one.  That was a hard thing, people–leaving what we’d known for nearly ten years to start over somewhere new.  It was one of the hardest things I’ve ever done (right up there with pulling my son from school mid-year to homeschool).  Seeing a connection between the two, a well-meaning friend reminded me that “You can’t just leave every time you don’t like something.”

Well, no, but life is too short to be miserable at church.  (And my kids are too important to be fed to the lions.)  And that idea is what I keep coming back to, when people hem and haw and fuss and complain about what they oughtta and what they shoulda…. Life is too short. 

Life is too short not to do what you can to fix a problem.

Life’s too short not to take a stand for your true priorities.

Even when it’s hard–and it IS HARD, y’all, I get it–life’s too short to live full of regrets.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change;
courage to change the things I can;
and wisdom to know the difference.
–Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971)

Courage, friends.

 

 

 

 

Rainy Mondays

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This is the second Monday in a row I woke to pouring rain.  (So thankful!)

As I got ready I was thinking about how much I love mornings like this.  Downstairs, I found my two daughters snuggled together on the sofa, wrapped up in a comforter, giggling; it hit me again how much we would miss out on if my kids were in public school.  That snuggle time couldn’t have happened at 7:30 in the morning–my older daughter would have been on a bus, headed to a school that starts at 7:50.

This post sums up my heart this morning.

Originally published April 2016

These are my favorite mornings to be a homeschooling family.

No one wants to move very quickly anyway:  first off, it’s Monday, and secondly, it’s gray and dreary and drizzly……

And guess what?  It doesn’t matter.  We don’t have to Go.  We don’t have to Rush and Get Out the Door.  I can sit in the chair in our bedroom and snuggle the almost-not-two-year-old-anymore and spend a good long time reading.  (Mr. Putter.  Again.)  The older kids can stumble out of bed terribly close to the start of our school day and eat their breakfast, groggy, in their pajamas, while we begin our morning together.  Slowly.

 

Isn’t that part of pursuing “enough?”  Knowing when to be slow?

 

 

Rethinking our Homeschool: Two Questions

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An interesting thing happened when I stopped reading other people’s homeschooling blogs.

I started asking myself what I really wanted OUR SCHOOL to look like.

I was doing a lot of “I love that! I wish we did that;” set to repeat.  So many beautiful things and lovely ideas, endlessly scrolling past and scolding me with shoulds and oughts.  Or, worse, those moments of “I wish we’d done that,” because I really did come to this homeschooling thing a little late.  There are a dozen things I wish I’d done differently in my children’s first few years of school.  (For starters, how about not sending them?)  But since there’s no way to change the past, camping out in regret is not really very effective.  (Aw…..camping out!  I wish we’d done that!  Wait….)img_8148

 

The book Gaston is a new favorite in our house.  One line sums up perfectly how I feel in any attempts I make to manufacture a perfect homeschool:  “There.  That looked right….it just didn’t feel right.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

So I sat down one day, in the midst of “that’s not us….what is us?” and came up with three statement starters:

Our family is…..

Our family loves…..

Our family believes….

I then asked every single family member to give me three endings to each sentence.  (I finally stopped asking the four-year-old.  Even though she seems incredibly old for her age, she didn’t quite get this concept.)

It seemed really simple and basic, and I absolutely got some flippant answers (twelve and fourteen are the perfect ages for that).  But honestly, when I was studying the responses later, I realized “Our family loves….the library app” is a pretty succinct summation of one facet of our family.

I spent some time really thinking about this first question:  What does a homeschool look like for this family?  There are a thousand ways to “do homeschool,” but what fits us?

This family that is “bookish,” “quiet,” and “loves the library app” is probably going to be heavy on reading and maybe not so crazy about a ton of events and co-ops.

This family that is “weird” and “different” might need time to chase all their interests….Star Wars and music and Ponies and music and writing and music….and outside time when no one else wants outside time lol.  (We’re the ones at the park when it’s 45 degrees and cloudy; once it’s above about 83 and sticky, forget it.  We’re hibernating.)

Can I add that the “weird” and “different” was a unanimous verdict?  I’m kind of thrilled to pieces that we own it that proudly.

The idea that our family–again, unanimously–believes in God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit, working in the world and our lives, tells me that memorizing Scripture needs to be in the heart of our home somewhere.  We might not even call that “school.”

As I dug through their responses, I could feel our school starting to take shape.

The second question I asked myself was, What do my kids need?  Not “need” in a “needs work” way, but what do they really need?

My son’s response of “Our family is….exhausting” tells me I need to find a way to create another spot of quiet in our home.  With everyone here, all the time, it’s incredibly difficult to find quiet.

Both big kids need more outings; some adventures in their “school” experience.  I need to plan those adventures for mornings, because my energy is shot by afternoon (and because I need my quiet time, too).

My daughter needs more beauty in her school.  Just because her brother doesn’t like read-alouds and poetry tea-times doesn’t mean she has to miss out….and there’s the little one, too, to pull in for the fun stuff.  (And let’s be real.  He can turn up his nose at the idea but if there’s treats on a table, who wants to miss out on that?)

My son needs as much freedom as possible in his learning.  Key words: as possible.  It’s an interesting balance, me calling some shots and allowing him a voice within that structure.

All kids, always, need some uninterrupted alone-with-parent time.  Always.

Sitting with these two questions has begun to allow me the freedom to own this homeschool.  This is what we do.  “That looked right,” for us, “and it felt right, too.”