14 things I've learned by sending my homeschooler off to school

If you haven't picked up on it already one of the big changes for our family this fall has been that we made the decision to send Emma off to middle school...no more homeschooling for my oldest girl. It was definitely a big decision. But I wouldn't necessarily describe it as hard. I think we all knew the timing was right and once we found the place that was the right fit, everything seemed to fall into place. 

For her mama, it meant a lot of anxiety this summer. I felt like I needed to soak up every moment before sending her off for seven hours of her day, five days a week. And there's nothing like sending your child off to school to dredge up all those homeschooling insecurities that are always swirling around in the back of your head. It was easy to let myself doubt all the things I'd taught her and start to panic about the things she 'wasn't going to know.' 

Turns out, I was the only one who would have a bumpy transition, and she'd slip right into the routines of school days, homework, schedules and uniforms. 

I'm liking how this year is unfolding. I'm loving getting up early--making the school run and coming home to chores, a little laundry and an earlier start to our homeschool day.

With one month under my belt, I've learned a few things about sending my homeschooler off to school, (shared with you in list form because I live and die by lists these days). 

• Every day is not an evaluation of my abilities as a homeschooling parent. Some things she'll get, some things she won't. But so will every other kid no matter their educational background.
• When she gets home from school she'll be hungry. Very hungry. Have a big snack.
• It's okay if she goes to school with homework she did all by herself, and it's not perfect. That's what her teachers are for. (Also. See bullet point number one.)
• Teachers aren't trying to trick her into failure. (These words were spoken at our parent night and I may have sighed audibly.) "We're here to help. We're on their side. We're not trying to trick your child into failing." Bless it.
• Lunches get progressively more uninspired as the week goes on.
• School drop-off outfits get progressively more uninspired as the week goes on.
• Even though you taught her math last year, suddenly when she asks for help with homework, you can't remember a darn thing.
• On the days you're on time to school, you'll get all green lights.
• On the days you're late to school, you'll get behind a school bus. (or a tractor.)
• If you bring the puppy on drop off, he's going to end up on her lap, in the front seat of the car, licking her face, spilling your coffee, and trying to jump out and see all the fun kids playing outside the school.
• Despite all the things you read on what to say or questions to ask your child to encourage her to open up and share about her day, the thing that works best is a little bit of quiet and a little bit of space. It seems like she's always willing to share, when I'm not prying for details. 
• Even though you can't wait to see her when the day is done, you'll still need to set an alarm on your phone to remind yourself to stop what you're doing and go pick her up from school.
• You will consider adopting school uniforms for the whole family. It's so nice.
• A really good travel mug is key. Because, coffee.

This too shall pass...right?

I wrote this post as part of my participation in a blog tour for The Motherhood on behalf of the makers of Children's MOTRIN and received compensation to thank me for taking the time to participate. However, all opinions expressed are my own.

On one of my visits with my mom over the summer she returned the big brown scrapbook I made for her years and years ago. By now, photos and hand-written captions and notes are slipping out, the pages dotted with water stains. It's seen better days. She handed it to me reluctantly, knowing my plate is pretty full, but hoping I might find a little time to put the big brown spiral back together. 

I have it sitting on the bookshelf behind my desk. I keep it right on top in hopes that one of these days I'll pick it up and start to glue and paste the pages back together. 

Of course the few times I have picked it up, I've found myself lost in the photographs. The house I grew up in has much the same feel of Woodlawn. Big, old, beautiful. But always something wanting to be fixed. I'm hopeful that my kids are getting at least a sliver of the experiences we had growing up. (Though I'm seriously lacking in the canning and gigantic vegetable garden.) 

When I flip through the pages of gardens and sheep shows, and tubing trips down the stream, beautifully set Thanksgiving tables, music lessons and Volkswagen buses, I'm left with nothing less than awe for mother. 

Man, she had her hands full. Four kids. A barn full of animals. Sports practices. 4-H meetings. Burst pipes above the kitchen ceiling and escaped steers running up the road. I know it must have been stressful and overwhelming and just too much at times. But the thing that stands out is grace.

As I stand in the midst of four kids and farm animals and soccer practices and school runs and homeschool lessons plans, and laundry and messy houses and broken sinks and chores, grace is not the word that comes to mind to describe myself.

One of my mother's most commonly passed out words of wisdom is "this too shall pass." I would say those words to myself while sitting in the chair of the baby's room--rocking a crying, sick child that just wouldn't sleep. Or when someone decided to suddenly give up naps. Or adopt a less-than-enjoyable attitude.

But this year, I find myself grabbing on to that mantra once again. This new pace we're finding ourselves in kinda has me out of sorts. I like down time. Home time. And it takes work to find those moments right now. A family dinner that isn't hemmed in by soccer practice, church meetings or homework? An afternoon to blow off work and take the long way home? The moments aren't as frequent as they used to be. 

But I also know that this too shall pass. The schedule will soon slow down for the winter. We'll all adjust to the new pace. I'll learn to do a better job of recognizing those simpler, quieter moments and relish them. 

I'm not sure how my mom did it. But she managed to balance so much, so much hard stuff with such grace and calm. I love the quote below...that grace is an outpouring of what's on the inside. I'm pretty confident that's the key right there. And I'm praying for just a portion of that in my days, as well. That grace might overflow.

Thanks for listening, friends. More soon.

The makers of Children's MOTRIN are inspired by all the things moms do. Moms may not always realize it, but they are amazing in so many ways. Moms are on call day and night have have so much unique knowledge that can really help other moms. That's why the makers of Children's MOTRIN are asking moms to share this knowledge in the form of tips and tricks that help keep them going. They are asking moms to post their tips to the MOTRIN facebook page and for every post, Children's MOTRIN will donate $1 to Safe Kids Worldwide, a global nonprofit that provides moms with the tips they need to keep their children safe.

When your daughter writes a book for her little sister and your heart breaks a little

I think that God periodically gives you glimpses of remarkable goodness in your children as a way to let you know that as a parent, you're doing a few things right. Now that my oldest is firmly planted in the world of tweendom and well on her way to teenagerhood, I've been learning a lot about parenting and being a mother. And almost daily, I find myself standing in the middle of this swirl of four girls, their messes, my messes, our chaos, and wondering, "Am I doing a good job?" And part of you says I don't think so. And another part says maybe.

You reach the end of the day and you're tired and you just want them to all be asleep and quiet, but then you catch your two littlest snuggled in bed together heads touching, legs tangled, reading books. And you get this little pain in your heart, like a gentle touch on your back saying, "See? They're turning out to be pretty awesome kids."

You accidentally walk past an open bedroom door and see another one making her bed. And it happens again, that little jump in your chest, and you realize they do listen. They do care, every once in a while.  

You're driving in the car and they seem to have forgotten you're the one behind the wheel and you overhear the oldest taking sincere interest in what someone smaller has to say. And you try not to let them see you smile because you don't want them to notice that they're doing it again. You're getting another gentle reminder that you're getting a few things right. 

Or maybe one day, you walk into your oldest daughter's bedroom and find a palm-sized notebook wrapped in blue polka-dot duct tape on her bedside table. And when you look inside, you can barely read the print past the tears. 

For two years, she's been writing down tips for her little sister.

It's another glimpse, another breaking of your heart in the best possible way that despite the fighting (oh the fighting!) and the eye-rolling and the big huge sighs, and the slammed doors, that this kid is a good kid. Everything and everyone is gonna be okay. 

I told Emma I was going to share a few peeks into the pages, which you can see in the gallery below. She knows I can barely get through it without getting all weepy-mom on her.  

And I'm thankful and proud and even though someone just ran in the door crying because someone else soaked them with the garden hose, and probably later, I'll walk into their bedrooms and want to weep over the mess, I'm grateful and I'm encouraged. I have the best kind of happy mama pain in my heart.

I'm not sure I'll be able to top four

If you follow me on Instagram, you may have picked up on the fact that my youngest child is mildly horse crazy. (understatement of the year.) Her riding helmet and jockey goggles are pretty much standard daily uniform. We've watched The Man From Snowy River so many times that we've burned out the chase scene--right where the horses start galloping through the snow in slow-motion. She talks about Jim and Jessica like they were family.

If she's not downstairs on her belly playing with her horses in front of the wooden barn (we scored out of the neighbor's TRASH), she's upstairs on the rocking horse listening to the soundtrack from The Man From Snowy River and reciting lines perfectly in time with the scenes from the movie. 

So, when it came up at our New Year's Eve party that my aunt and cousin's had the perfect little Shetland Pony that could come live here as long as we wanted, plans were set in motion for the best birthday present a four-year-old girl could want.

This weekend was the big day. An extra stall was secretly made ready in the barn. A trip to Dover Saddlery "just for fun" was actually me shoving brushes and tack boxes at the ladies behind the register (who were delightfully in on the secret) while Birdy was lost in the corner full of Breyer horses. Trailers were arranged. Family gathered. 

While everyone assembled outside, I stayed on the inside of the house trying desperately to keep Birdy away from windows. Birdy, who was suddenly completely uninterested in watching a movie or any other normal distraction a four-year-old would like. (We ended up making beds together. Go figure.)

Elizabeth was also being surprised with the pony. She's slowly moving up the ranks as the next horsey girl in the family, and I knew she'd get just as much (if not more) fun out of the pony. There's nothing like a little Shetland to help you learn the ropes of riding--especially when you get bucked off and it's not very far to fall. (Both girls have already tested this philosophy.)

Just as I thought, they were stunned to silence. No tears of joy. No squeals of excitement. Just mouths open, eyes unbelieving. But as the dust settled on what had just happened, the joy was pretty evident.

Seriously, there's not much better than this on your birthday.

The next morning, as I was carrying Birdy downstairs for breakfast, we stopped at the window at the landing, which gave us a perfect view of the red pony grazing in the field. Tinkerbell, is her name. And Birdy leaned in to me and whispered, "I'm so happy Tinkerbell gets to live with me."

Happy birthday, Birdy. And PS. I'll probably never be able to top this. 

From the fog

My family is emerging--both figuratively and this morning, literally--from the fog. We've been battling a stomach virus that has been slowly taking down members of the family one by one for the past week (two weeks?) or so. 

I feel like I've lost track of time in the haze of sickness and laundry and trying to maintain some kind of order. Apparently a crazy super-bug is making its way through our county. It's big local news, as they try to track its source. 

Dan has been the last one to fall and sickest of all of us. A trip to the urgent care clinic turned into a trip to the emergency room and I felt like I was walking in to something out of a movie. Triage, people clutching buckets and moaning, crying. People being treated in the middle of the waiting room in order to move people through more quickly. 

Meanwhile, I kept my face down, my hands to myself and applied what I imagine was the equivalent of one gallon of hand sanitizer on a constant basis. Thankfully, the nurses liked us, and placed us in the back "behind the curtain" to wait out our stay and test results. 

Today, we're still limping along. I'm running on little sleep and lots of chaos. I waffle between running this house like a tight ship--chores divvied! school work checked off! laundry humming!--and blinking back tired tears while trying to text a friend and tell her how tired I am.

But. BUT. Normal will return. In fact, I can see it on the horizon. The fog IS lifting and there are things to be thankful for!  

• We have electricity. As silly as it sounds, every time I throw another load of laundry in the washer I think, imagine doing this if the power was out. 
• It's not snowing.
• My kids are doing chores like champs.
• We're still managing to get school work accomplished.
• The fog was beautiful this morning.
• Birdy's daily outfits make me smile.
• Barn cats swirling around your legs when you walk out the door? That's free therapy right there.
• This sickness is only temporary.
• We're about to have our birthday marathon and one of my girls is getting a huge surprise.
• It's spring! Hallelujah.

So that's where I've been. Hiding out, recovering, changing sheets and serving up ginger ale, crackers and toast. But still...finding little things to lift my spirits in the moments that try to drag me down. 

Thanks, as always, for listening. 

xo.