We had this date night on the calendar for weeks, just Andrew and me. In true 2020 fashion, we made reservations for a time slot at the pool, and then went for curbside pick up at Dairy Queen. Afterward, we hit up Target to buy Andrew’s school supplies. I’ve made this annual outing twice before with his older sister, but this was Andrew’s first official journey into the magical aisles of school supplies. He would start kindergarten in two weeks, and it was finally his turn to flip through folders and gaze at all those perfectly pointed pencils. Unblemished erasers and the scent of new crayons were calling his name, and even though Andrew isn’t much of a crafty kid, he still gets pretty jazzed about a fresh glue stuck. But I should clarify that what Andrew would actually start in two weeks was virtual kindergarten which means back-to-school shopping is more appropriately titled keep-staying-at-home-and-now-log-onto-a-computer-each-morning shopping.
And that kind of shopping is pretty lame.
Fortunately, he didn’t know any differently, so I put on my happy face and talked up the school supplies even though our list was only two items long. We already have plenty of pencils and scissors and notebooks, and we’re pretty much drowning in crayons and markers. The only items on his supply list that we did not have at home were those My First Pencils—the big thick ones for tiny hands, and a blue and yellow folder with prongs. So when I say I talked up this shopping excursion, you can see I had my work cut out for me.
“Whoa, buddy! Look at these big pencils! This is so cool! Your sister didn't get to buy these big pencils. These are just for kindergartners. And prongs! Do you know about prongs? Let’s hurry over to the folder aisle so I can show. You’re gonna love prongs.”
To my great fortune, the pack of My First Pencils came with a small pencil sharpener which was the highlight of the 3 minutes we spent in the school section. He wasn’t as fascinated by the prongs.
*****
By the time I pulled up a chair next to Andrew on his first morning of virtual kindergarten, I was already maxed out. The buildup to school was both nonexistent and completely draining. We had shuffled the children’s rooms around, moved beds, borrowed desks, hung bulletin boards, and printed schedules to hang in every room of the house. And now I was stepping into the role of learning partner, not just for Andrew, but also for his second grade sister, a role that required me to be “available” to help during the school day. I joined millions of parents across America who suddenly landed the job of administrative assistant to their child—managing various schedules, downloading software updates, and documenting logins and passwords, all while keeping the half-naked potty-training toddler out of the background of the class meetings. And I’m proud to say that only once did my child’s teacher need to schedule a call with me to ask that I keep the “exposed baby” away from the camera.
After months of motherhood demanding more of me than I had, virtual school felt like the slow, painful peeling off of my last layer. How many times a day could I die to myself and still have something left?
For the past nine months, I had made the best of a crummy situation. My creative energy and positive spirit were in overdrive as we’d head out for yet another family walk, and I’d carried on about how wonderful it was to have all this extra family time. Well kids, we might not love everything about being quarantined, but it’s the best decision for our family right now and we’ll make the best of it! School felt like yet another situation for this same tired pep talk. Well kids, we might not love everything about virtual school, but it’s the best decision for our family right now and we’ll make the best of it!
But our best efforts weren’t working, and three weeks into the school year, we decided to unenroll our children from virtual school to homeschool instead. The notion was comical.
Hadn’t I just spent weeks (i.e. months) surviving on fumes, and now I was going to solve this problem by homeschooling? It was ridiculous. When the governor shut down schools for three weeks in March, it felt like too much. I couldn’t imagine a lockdown with three children for three weeks. Now, somehow, I was willingly signing up to be with these children everyday for the next year AND be fully responsible for their education. This wasn’t lining up.
But I was crumbling under the demands of virtual school, starving under a mountain of boredom as I locked myself upstairs running back and forth troubleshooting technology and reiterating the need to sit in a chair and pay attention to the screen, a screen I’ve put so much effort into limiting.
“Get back on your computer! You can finish with the Legos later! Right now you need to be on your computer.”
These unfamiliar words felt poisonous. We had gone from months of extreme freedom to a day dictated by the schedule posted on our new bulletin board telling us to eat our snack from 9:55-10:10. These new restrictions were taking the frustration of 2020 to an unhealthy level for our family. But homeschool? Could I really do this? Time for another pep talk.
Well kids (and Joy), we might not love everything about homeschooling, but it’s the best decision for our family right now, and we'll make the best of it!
I didn’t believe a word of it., but my bar for making the best of it was pretty low at this point.
*****
We explored nonfiction books all week, and it was now our turn to take a crack at writing our own. Charlotte was already off and away designing a magazine about pumpkins as I sat next to Andrew to begin my daily opening line about how the first thing an author needs is an idea.
“I already know that, mom. You tell me everyday.”
“Well, today darling, you get to be the teacher as you write and draw,” I said in my half teacher, half mom voice.“You need to pick an idea that you know a lot about, so you can teach your readers. What do you know a lot about?”
At this point I was paving a trail for the answer I expected. Andrew is an animal expert, devouring and remembering the strangest pieces of information he’s gathered from animal books, movies, and countless trips to the zoo. I was ready for him to pick an animal, draw a picture, and write a simple sentence. Snails have thousands of teeth. Dogs can only see blue and yellow and gray. Geckos shed their skin and eat it. It seemed pretty cut and dry, but Andrew wasn’t taking my bait. He had no interest in writing about animals today.
“I want to write a recipe book like Charlotte,” he announced. Charlotte has written a handful of recipe books, and by written I mean she either makes up recipes she hasn’t tried or copies them from her favorite dessert bloggers. (Sidenote, if Charlotte ever sends you a recipe in the mail, contact me first before making it. It will be crucial to know if this is one of her own, untested creations. And once again Smith family, I apologize for the chocolate pudding disaster.) I understood that Andrew wanted to mimic his big sister, but a recipe seemed like a big undertaking for a little boy with minimal writing stamina. I continued to suggest animals he was more familiar with, planting my feet firmly in the plan I had imagined.
“No, I want to write a recipe.”
“Ok,” I said, slowly drawing out the K. “What do you know how to make?” I asked with part curiosity and part smugness, ready for his grand idea to hit its first wall.
“Cinnamon sugar toast,” he announced. Everything about his face told me he was saying “duh” in his head.
My mind swirled to figure out the next step needed to help him create a recipe. I knew I couldn't shut down his confidence, but this was not my plan. Did we have the freedom to completely ditch my plan? How-to writing wasn’t scheduled for at least another month. Isn’t this the beauty of homeschooling? I can ditch the plan and go with the flow, right? During this internal 20 second debate, Andrew drew two lines, splitting his paper into 4 boxes. He numbered the boxes 1, 2, 3, 4, and then started drawing all sort of rectangles in box #1.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“These are going to be my steps. First you need ingredients.” He pointed to each rectangle in box #1 and named his ingredient. “This is the toaster, the bread, the cinnamon, the sugar, and the butter. Oh, and you need a plate.” He added a circle. “And a knife!” He smiled up at me, and although he never said it, we both knew his idea was better than mine.
*****
For fourteen years, I have been teaching young children to read and write. I have nothing to contribute to a conversation about investments, interior design, event planning, or business start-ups, but if you want to talk about early literacy development and six traits of writing, I’m your girl. My favorite part of the school day was writing workshop when I pulled kids to a horseshoe shaped table or sat down next to a child in a chair meant for a six-year-old, all for the sake of putting pencil to paper. We brainstormed ideas, attempted to spell words that seemed too hard, drew pictures to enhance the story, pushed through writer's blocks, and celebrated writing in all its beautiful forms because these students had become authors. I loved it.
And somehow, in the midst of this nightmare we call 2020, I was given the chance to sit next to Andrew and watch him become an author.
This mushy feeling inside me, the one clogging my throat and blurring my eyes came with a strange realization. I’m not inclined to look for the good. All that silver lining, glass half-full nonsense irks me. I mean, why can’t the bad just be bad? Why do I have to look for diamonds in my rough and roses in my thorn bushes? But this felt different; it wasn’t a bright side or a fake smile or a mustering up of positivity from a dry and cracked well. It felt lucky, like winning a little jackpot. It felt like relief and genuine joy, and for the first time in nine months I could see our family moving past survival. This school year—the one that started with tears because I didn't want my kids in front of a computer all day, but I also didn’t want them to miss out on buses and backpack and gathering on a colorful carpet to listen to Kevin Henkes books—had become a gift.
We have every intention of sending our children back to public school next fall (famous last words, right?), but I have a hunch that this school year, this wretched 2020 school year, will be one of my favorites.
This post is part of a blog hop with Exhale—an online community of women pursuing creativity alongside motherhood, led by the writing team behind Coffee + Crumbs. Click here to view the next post in this series "Savor".
