school – everything He gives

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I love being home. Our family trip to upstate New York was fun and restful in some ways, chaotic and exhausting in others, but regardless, it is always so nice to come home. When we drove in from NY on a Monday afternoon, Brandon had about two hours to quickly unpack and then repack before his flight left for a week-long work trip in California. So, even though we had a week back at home, it didn’t quite fully feel like we were “back to normal” without Brandon around.

This past week it was good to get back into our usual rhythms. I’ve noticed that I don’t quite feel settled into a place until I’ve been cooking or baking in it. Making that first loaf of homemade (gluten-free) bread and filling the house with that smell feels like coming home. I was busy this past week making gelatin gummies for the kids, a big batch of granola for Brandon and I, bread and “snack bars” galore. Phoebe has stopped eating her usual Lara Bar snack in the mornings and so I scramble to find something she will eat in place of it. She is pretty limited with what she will snack on and we are trying so desperately to increase her caloric intake, so for her to drop a favored food always sends me back to the drawing board and results in lots of receipe testing.

Our days have been simple. The weather has been roasting hot and humid (ugh), and the kids have still been busy outside, coming in with cheeks flushed with heat. I don’t love summer, but I try to make the best of it. Picking blueberries and flowers from local farmstands, and savoring the daily afternoon thunderstorms helps me endure it. Our little porch garden hasn’t done very well, and I miss having the larger plot we had at our last rental. Sigh. Dreams for the future. Yesterday we had a really informal “half-birthday” party for Phoebe and Noah at my parent’s neighborhood pool with their favorite little pals. I didn’t snap any pictures (gasp!) but it was fun all the same. Their half-birthday was really back in June (20th and 23rd) so when you celebrate the half-birthday late, what on earth do you call it? It was such a treat for the kids, though, who often find it hard to have a party with their friends around their birthdays (which are the week of Christmas). It was fun for me, too, to see the children playing and swimming together and gather with some of my favorite friends.

I’ve been busy finishing up a few knitted projects. My brother and sister-in-law brought back some yarn from Iceland for my birthday and I knitted some slippers for myself with one ball of it. I’ve tucked them away for winter but I’m already longing for those first cool wisps of fall air. I also finished up the Antartkis shawl that I made for a lady I used to babysit for back in my high school days. It was what I solely worked on during our trip to NY so I was able to finish it fairly quickly (for me) and she picked it up this week. I loved knitting it, especially since there was no purling and it was a really simple/easy pattern and yet still interesting. When I’m knitting something I grow attached to it in some way, all that time spent fingering the yarn and bent over it with concentration and enjoyment. It’s hard to give it away or to attach value to it, but also such a sweet thing to be able to make something special with my hands for someone else!

Phoebe’s homeschool co-op begins in about a month (!!!!!) and so my mind is shifting to all the projects around the house and all my piles of clutter and unfinished business that I hope to have organized before our first year of school begins. A friend has offered to give us a couple of twin beds for the kids, and so I think we’ll be rearranging bedrooms for the children. I’m craving a major house purge. I’m hoping to organize my desk area and clear out a little space that can be for schooling. I’m also hoping to squeeze in a camping trip with some friends before school begins, too. It feels way too soon to be talking about our first child going to school, and the sentimental part of me is resisting this big change, even though I’m super excited to begin, too. So many books to read! Curriculum still to pick out! School supplies! House projects! And still, to fit in time to read long snuggled with children on the couch, to stay up late for fireflies and late evening walks. I want to hurry through summer because fall is my favorite, but also am so mindful that this is our last summer EVER before our lives begin to revolve around school, and so I want to enjoy each muggy, buggy day.

So this weekend last year I believe was the weekend we moved into this home + this side of town. There’s something about being in a place for a year. Seeing it in all its seasons. There’s something about growing up and changing in a place that seems to mostly stay the same. We live on the backside of a retreat center, in the residential section. It’s sort of an odd arrangement but we love living in a little hidden cove of quiet in the city. It was our first summer experiencing this place with campers coming and going every week, our usual walks interrupted with camp activity and hustle. Now kids are back in school, camps close up for the off season, and we are back to our evening walks all over the deserted retreat campus. The little ones love visiting the lake and “fishing,” looking for the moon and watching the bats in the evening sky darting back and forth. My heart felt full and melancholy at the same time. Seasons come and seasons go.

I was talking with a couple momma friends earlier in the day yesterday about how we feel that nagging sense of being behind sometimes, always behind. In a culture that is always pressing ahead to the “next thing” and the “next stage” it can be awfully hard and terribly counter-cultural to just slow and linger where you are. My daughter will be 5 in December and we’ve gone back and forth about whether or not to start preschool with her this year. But if I’m honest, the only real reason I’m feeling that niggling worry is because I don’t want her to be behind and because so many of her peers are already in school. The reality is, she’s my first. She’s my oldest. And this is probably the last year we will ever have like this, just us at home, days full of errands, play dates, adventures outside, books piled high, dress-up and coloring and cookie baking in the middle of the day. Once she starts school, even homeschool, our minds and schedules will begin to revolve around school. Our freedoms will change a bit, our family dynamic will change. So, as eager as I am to dig into school and embrace that new season ahead, I’ve decided to just linger over this little season right here, with my three little ones at home and the sweet freedom of unscheduled learning. My plan is simple: read a lot, play outside a lot. Probably my number one goal “educationally” this year is to increase and stimulate wonder over their world. To give them a lot of time and attention, play and surprise. To excite them about learning. To learn as we go, but not to worry about it or stress over it. I don’t think “my” way is better than anyone else’s. I’m so thankful for the freedom we have in our own families to choose what works best for our own family dynamic. I’ve thought over these words many times in the past few weeks, taken from Jean Fleming’s book A Mother’s Heart:

Now is the time to get things done. . .
wade in the water,
sit in the sun,
squish my toes
in the mud by the door,
explore the world in a boy just four.

Now is the time to study books,
flowers,
snails,
how a cloud looks;
to ponder “up,”
where God sleeps nights,
why mosquitoes take such big bites.

Later there’ll be time
to sew and clean,
paint the hall
that soft new green,
to make new drapes,
refinish the floor–
Later on. . .when he’s not just four.

Irene Foster, “Time is of the Essence”

Tag: school

settling back in

evening walks

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