Thanks Giving

I've just come back from a funeral for a man who helped R and I and some other great people make a great thing happen this summer. He agreed to rent us a house for the purpose of setting up an Oxford House residence, which we managed to open in June. Perhaps it doesn't sound like a big thing, but to the men whose lives this has touched, it is a very huge thing.

Tonight, R, myself, the state coordinator of the OH and the group of men that live in the house (whom we are glad to call friends) all went to pay our respects to the wife and young daughters that are missing him tonight.

And as I sit here, I am reminded, yet again, how easy it is to let something slide, to not take the opportunity to tell those in your life just how much you love them, whenever you can, because you just never know when it may be the last time. So I'm going to close down my computer and curl up next to this beautiful man with whom I am so blessed to share a life and I'm going to be thankful.

Again.

Welcome to the World of Public Education

So I realize that a lot of blogs must surely have been written about the first day of school - all the Mom Bloggers out there waxing poetic on that momentous day, shedding tears as their little ones trudge off to school to start their individual journeys in the Pursuit of Knowledge. Not me.

You notice I was nowhere near a keyboard?

For those of you who know me, you are already making the connection. For those of you who don't, here's a brief synopsis:

I homeschooled for 12 years.

Enough said?

As the big day approached, the atmosphere in the house became more and more somber. The realization had set in that THIS time Mom wasn't bluffing. She really meant it. She was done.

This was the year to test those little wings. Even if I hadn't just moved out on my own (well, as on my own as one can be with 3 kids in the backseat), in the process of a divorce and looking for a stable job, I had vowed that last year was the LAST year for homeschooling if they didn't start cooperating. Needless to say, they didn't really take me seriously.

Now, there were elements that I loved about homeschooling. I believe in it wholeheartedly, as each child can learn at their own pace, in their own way. I've never felt that the one-size-fits-all approach to education was the best way for a child to learn. That said, I was at home, day in, day out, alone with my kids while their dad worked in another state 5 days a week, without cease. Weekends simply meant that I was with my kids... with someone else. And my kids (well, really I'm speaking about the older two... K was usually around somewhere doing K things) just didn't think that organized education in any form or fashion was for them. For the most part, we were life learners, with the occasional structured sit-down time thrown in for good measure to make me feel like I actually was doing a good job.

Really, it was the 6-hour long sibling wrestling matches cum screaming, raging arguments on a daily basis that did me in. I think if I had had other kids, or maybe even just one kid, it would have been an extremely successful venture. Many people questioned my laissez-faire approach to education, even though I saw their little minds grow in ways that I don't think mine was ever given a chance to in early childhood. When I was a child, school interfered with my own lofty pursuits of authordom and, really, interfered with my reading time. Consequently, I wanted to give my kids the opportunity to pursue their passions with freedom, because there really is learning in all things. It happens everywhere, at any time, driven by our innate curiosity about how the world works. Unfortunately, the only real passion they ever seemed to show was the zeal they brought to their wrestling matches. The wild, non-stop banshee screaming in a house with no walls finally just beat me down. Ideals be damned, my sanity was hanging in the balance. Besides, I knew it would take a whole village to teach K. This was not something I was equipped to do alone.

And so, August 24th, 2009, I got up uber-early to make my children their favorite breakfast, dressed my children (or one of them, anyway) and herded them out the door for their momentous First Day Photo Shoot, all the while giggling to myself. This was IT! The first day of the rest of their lives. At school. Apart. No fights, no wrestling matches, no paying a babysitter (not that I've ever really done that, but still... free, supervised childcare. OH MY.).

I have to admit, it was all I could do not to peel out of the parking lot that day. The taste of new life was fresh on my tongue and I was ready for it. That first day was a good one, for all of us. I went to a job interview in my free time and subsequently was hired. The kids came home aglow with the excitement of their new adventure. It lasted for a couple of days and then K realized that it was just too much for his poor little boy self to handle. All those quirks, all of those delays, all of those things that make my sweet, Special K so unique and special were just too much in a structured school setting and anxiety kicked into high gear.

For weeks life was more than he or I could handle. I’m just thankful that I’ve managed to raise two very resourceful other children because in those weeks after school began, they had to do a lot of solo flights as I took a crash course in crisis management. K began bolting from the car, running around the school with a fresh-from-bed Mom with long, wild hair, pjs and sneakers chasing him after him, doors thrown open, car abandoned. I quickly learned to actually dress before heading off to school each morning. I’m not sure how many people have witnessed my bright green fuzzy “lounge” pants with cute little pictures all over them, but I’m sure far more than I would care to know about. I have to admit, the early morning cardio was exhausting.

We reached critical mass about a month into school, during which time I was in daily contact with the fine folks in the Special Education Dept. trying desperately to reach a workable solution for K until all of our testing was complete for him. He was miserable, I was miserable. It was a dark time that I won’t go into in great depth. Suffice it to say that medication has its place when you are dealing with Quality of Life issues. My little K was suffering and my heart was breaking in all the wrong places. Mom Kisses just didn’t quite do it anymore.

So here we are, a few months in now, and we are about to get K’s IEP started, finally (for those of you fortunately unversed in Special Education Lingo, that is Individualized Education Program). This Friday, in fact. And things are starting to get better. I have to admit, he’s had a lot of people advocating for him. And even then, it is still a battle to get him what he needs. My heart has ached more than a few times for those kids who have no advocates. I have friends who fell through the cracks and it breaks my heart for the children they were.

And the other two? Report cards just came out. And what I’m hearing from their teachers is that they are extremely bright, making the transition from homeschooling to public ed with grace. E-dog, who struggled the first month with the (apparently derogatory) label of “tomboy” as she barreled through all the boys on the playground in football has not only NOT caved to those petty little girls, she’s managed to recruit most of them to the playing field with her, taking on the boys with gusto. Her teacher told me the other day with a smile on her face that she just sits back at recess with the other teachers and they watch my fearless daughter take down boy after boy. Apparently they’ve all learned that you don’t want to mess with Elke.

As for the O-Man… once his initial disgust with the mandatory khakis and polos wore off (and he realized that EVERYONE looks like a nerd, not just him), he’s learned to work the uniform to his advantage with the chicklets. He’s surrounded by pubescent pre/teen girls – what ISN’T to love about Middle School? Besides, they have a library that he’s systematically plowing his way through, plundering the historical fiction section to feed his love of historical war. Girls and war... I hardly need to parent anymore.

The biggest compliment, though? Elke’s teacher said to me the other day, “There are some areas she is working on and once she gets them she’ll fly. But what she has that most of the other kids don’t have is a good foundation of life skills and experiences. She’s quite an amazing girl.” I guess I didn’t do so badly after all.

Wrestling team practice starts tomorrow. I have a feeling that my snaggle-toothed Princess will be an unstoppable force in her sport of choice. I feel sort of sorry for those other kids, though, really.

Chapter Two, Paragraph 3

So it has been awhile. I feel like I did when I sat my journal down and didn't pick it up again for a very long time. When I finally opened the pages, it felt odd, no longer like my closest confidant. I felt that I had strayed, that I had committed the ultimate betrayal, and to come crawling back now was just plain hypocritical. To this day, I have not found my muse again in the pages of a journal, and it saddens me. I have a beautiful one, bound in a soft, printed leather, that sits on my bedside table, waiting for that day that I am brave enough to lay those first words.

This, these blog entries, are the closest thing I have to journaling and they are, by necessity, edited for public consumption. One doesn't lay one's soul open for the world to consume with their breakfast coffee (or tea, or protein shake, or energy drink) at their leisure. No matter how much we think we may be opening ourselves, in the back of our minds there is that check and balance that is our neighbor, our co-worker, or our kids. Perhaps even our mate. (Certainly that big, hairy, creepy stalker guy that cruises past the house at 3 a.m. throwing rocks at the window. Especially him.) When I journal, everything superfluous is stripped away until what is left is pure me, laid on the page in a sometimes brutal manner, in a way that I have shared with very few people in my life. It is nothing more, or less, than a reflection of my soul - without thought or concern for what people may think of me. And for some reason, I don't want the world to know me that well. If you know me that well, it means you worked for it.

I still haven't figured out what I'm going to do with the pages and pages of filled journals that sit in a container in my garage. My entire childhood is in that box. My coming of age is in that box, in fact, and we all know just how awkward and turbulent that time is, especially if you happened to go through it as a girl. It worries me, what will happen with my journals if something happens to me. Even 18 years after I last laid ink to paper, I cannot imagine someone reading them. They are funny, naive, sad, incredibly melodramatic, and more than a little embarrassing. Way more. So... what to do with them?

I'm not even sure where that little muse came from. I opened this screen firmly planted in the middle of chapter 2, paragraph 3, with every intention of catching up on the first two paragraphs and here I am waxing philosophical on journal writing. But then I started thinking about how much I've missed writing these past few months, which somehow springboarded into my love of journal writing and, well, here we are.

And in the midst of it all, I've survived a praying-mantis nostril invader, a Vulcan mind meld and a good old-fashioned choke-hold without managing to dump my computer off my lap. Yes, I'm a multi-tasker, but that is another blog entirely...

I'm sorry, the praying-mantis nostril invader still has me a little rattled. It is not a small feat, surviving such a method of torture when it is delivered by 240 pounds of (mostly) pure muscle. In fact, I'd probably jump up and do a little Rocky survivor dance if it weren't for the fact that I'm not sure I have enough energy to even raise my head up from this pillow where it is propped as I type. Thank goodness for good typing instructors. I can stare at the ceiling and be secure in knowing that at least 96% of what I'm typing will be without error.

It has taken me a few months to get here (here meaning this blog here, not this pillow staring at the ceiling here), but I made it. And what a little journey it has been. I do fully intend to get to paragraphs 1 and 2, but I had to start somewhere, didn't I?

Suffice it to say that I am alive, have managed to keep all living creatures in my charge alive (a miracle unto itself), and that somehow, amazingly, we are all muddling through with mostly smiles on our faces. That isn't so bad, I don't think. After all, it is only the beginning of the chapter.