I’m adding my children’s smiley faces and little chalkboard sign to your feed. We started school this week, face-to-face-in-a-building-school. The kind we haven’t done for seventeen months. The kind where they are gone all day. It was a relief to get the day over with. I’ve been dreading the significance of this day all month, and last week I warned Stephen, “I’m going to be very emotional this week leading up to school. I will cry a lot and may even have some misplaced rage.”
Before I get sappy, let me shout from the rooftops that the last year of homeschooling was not easy. Days did not go as smoothly as I wanted, and we had to regroup and reset on a daily basis. The toddler constantly interrupted our worktime, and I lost my cool more than I care to admit. I haven’t forgotten the hard stuff, and I won’t ignore the fact that I will have so much more breathing room with two darlings in full-day school. But the last year was also special.
I often wondered what it would be like to homeschool, but I never would have had the guts to pull my kids out of their school and give it a try. The madness of last year dropped a strange opportunity into my lap, and I will forever treasure the sweet moments we had while stuck in this house together. I got to be the one to teach Andrew to read, and although he claims “I don’t really like writing and only do it cause you tell me to,” I did get to sit with him and watch him write some pretty adorable stories. I introduced Charlotte to Google Docs where she wrote countless stories and shared them with me so we could comment back and forth on her work. (“Just like you and your writing friends do, mom.”) I also introduced her creative little mind to Canva, but the jury is still out on whether or not that was a good thing. We organized an Academy Awards for Christmas books, we painted our own Starry Nights during our art unit, and we found a way to tie baking and cooking into just about every unit. We got sucked into endless YouTube videos about blue whales, and we watched Free Willy on the day we leaned about orcas. We were shocked that the rock cycle is actually pretty interesting, and we still can’t get over that a mama sea turtle returns to the beach where she hatched to lay her eggs. We had the freedom to travel to Maine and to Hilton Head, and we put all academic learning on hold for a bit as we adjusted to life with a foster child. We read a crazy amount books, and we had hard conversations about slavery and war and refugees and 9/11. And we ended the year with inside jokes and shared knowledge that still pops up in our regular days.
There were many times this last week I stopped, choked up by the finality of this season, and each time it was the same question that brought me to tears. The wretched question that moms are constantly asking ourselves. '“Was it enough?” I hate that fruitless question. In regards to our homeschool year, I force myself to say yes. It was enough. Not because it was perfect. It wasn’t. Not because there aren’t things I would have change. There are. But it was real. Real little humans alongside a real mom. Real messes. Real chaos. Real learning. Real frustrations. Real aplogogies. Real “let’s all take a timeout and try this again in five minutes.” Real silliness. Real laughter. Real life.
I had a lot of big feelings watching those two head off to the same school, but mostly gratitude for a safe, healthy, and special year. We squeezed every last drop out of summer, and we are ready for the refreshing rhythm of this next season.
Reading
This month I read People We Meet On Vacation by Emily Henry and This Tender Land by William Kent Krueger, and I’d give both books a solid 4.5 stars. People We Meet on Vacation was a perfect light-hearted summer read. This Tender Land was much more heartbreaking and gripping, and I really enjoyed both.
Eating
We loved this new Vegan Creamy Red Pepper Pasta, and we can’t go wrong with Change-Your-Life-Chicken. Other than that, there were a lot of popsicles and soft pretzels at the pool, and maybe some Cheeze-Its from the vending machine. Summer.
Making Me Smile
Andrew. Pretty much everything about Andrew is making me smile this week. I knew he was feeling nervous about going back to school, especially because this is his first time in elementary school, and he really doesn’t know that many people. He was such a genuine mix of nerves and excitement, and when he brought home this paper after the first day, I cried and smiled all at once. (I feel nervous because I don’t know anybody.)
*Shared with Andrew’s permission.
Way to identify those feelings, buddy. And for a boy who only wants to wear t-shirts and “swishy” shorts, he looked so dog-gone cute in his orange polo. I even got him to wear these shoes, and he looked like a little man.
And since I just had to buy one more thing from Old Navy in order to get free shipping with those shoes (It makes no sense, but I know you do it, too), I snagged this dress which is super cute and comfy.
This month we also got back to Chicago to see my parents…
Stephen survived climbing Half Dome…
And we finally got our kids to Kings Island.
Cheers to a fresh start this school year.
Til next time.