Further Up and Further In

Release

Rest

A homeschool routine that nourishes

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Mon, 06 Jun 2016 21:47:00 +0000

In my last post, I shared about the ideas and philosophies I have been studying and working to incorporate into our family's journey. This includes our homeschooling, but is really about our life rhythm, and applies far beyond what some would call "school." My goal was a merging of ideas that would help me reorient our daily life so that it gave priority to the things we value as a family and established a more restful pace.

poetry tea time

The routine I have established has worked beautifully for over 4 months now. The most convincing proof is how we felt approaching our usual June break. Most years, I'm dragging us all through the last few weeks of May, and often we just give up and quit somewhere near the end. This year, however, we have had such a nice rhythm and adequate periods of rest (see Sabbath schooling) that we were able to finish strong. Don't get me wrong - we will still take the month of June off, and the kids and I are all definitely looking forward to that. But we're not dying, crawling through these last few days devoid of joy or enthusiasm. That, folks, I call a win.

Details! I had to majorly move things around to find a daily rhythm that works for us in this season. Charlotte, who is 4, sleeps quite late, well past nine if I let her, but the older two children are usually up about 2 hours earlier. So they have time to move through their morning chores and get a bit of independent work (a math lesson and some memory work) done first thing. They are motivated to do this because then we get to head outside around 9:15-9:30. My son in particular needs to move his body early in the day or he starts driving every one around him a little nutty. His father is *ahem* the same way. We either go for a walk, ride bikes, or stop at the nearby park for a short time. We have been able to accomplish this about 4 days a week, even managing a walk in the torrential downpours we were blessed with this spring. Sometimes we meet with other friends during this time. This has helped my bouncing-off-the-walls-and-me-and-everything-else son to stop picking on his sisters so much. So good!

Snapshot of our routine, with a column for each child and me.

When we return home, we grab a snack and start our morning time. (I’ve noticed that some people call their Morning Time Morning Symposium, which sounds quite lovely and sophisticated and I plan to put it to a vote before my people in the near future.) Whatever you call it, I’ve talked about our morning time before here and the content is largely still the same. This really is an anchor that has held since I was able to hook it in about eighteen months ago. It helps me ensure I'm creating that atmosphere of restful learning I desire for my home. Putting it early-ish in the day works for me right now because it happens before I wear out and my students' focus starts to slip. It's where we learn hymns and poems, study art, read biographies and fascinating history stories, occasionally diagram a sentence, and have great conversations when it works (which of course is only sometimes).

If all goes reasonably well, by lunch time we have cared for our bodies (outside activity), taken time to worship (morning time), cultivated awareness and engagement with beauty (outside activity and morning time), cultivated excellent habits (chores, math, grammar, memory work, and physical care), enjoyed each other in conversation about interesting people and ideas (morning time), and enriched our minds (math, morning time). Any of this sound familiar?? We are able to touch on a big chunk of our core family values by lunch time!

Two other things I have added are Independent Project Time and Learning Meetings, both of which happen in the afternoon. I may have made those terms up, I can't really remember. I did use this post from Simple Homeschool for inspiration. Independent Project Time is just designated time for the kids to pursue their own interests, and also to finish up any work left over from the morning. I made a big list to guide them as we began, and included things like research, creative writing, foreign language practice, Kahn Academy, typing practice, piano (Hoffman Academy), certain crafts, etc. Charlotte considers herself just like the other kids, so she has a list too, which includes things like playdough, stencils, building toys, tangrams, etc, but she can also just play. The kids love being in charge of part of their learning, and I love that they have the opportunity to practice cultivating their minds and savoring ideas on their own.

And finally, the other new part of our schedule is our Learning Meetings. These rotate with the Independent Project Time and allow me to have a one on one meeting with each kid. This fills a major need that I had been struggling to meet - getting quality alone time with each child. I keep it light-hearted and cozy, but also use it to work on skills the child might need individual attention on or is excited about and needs guidance. For example, this is where I work with Charlotte (preschool) on her reading and handwriting skills; Ava (third-ish grade) on her creative writing and English grammar in preparation for Classical Conversations Essentials next year; Wyatt (first-ish grade) on his reverse engineering or researching other topics he’s interested in. This has also been the part of the schedule hardest to hold to because I tend to get distracted after lunch and also. . .I am tired in the afternoon!

Adding in the sections I described above means many things don't fit any more. You'll notice too that in my schedule graphic, there are blank spaces for margin. Oh how I want to fill those spaces!! Despite how well this routine has worked for us, I have to be very careful to guard my thoughts because I so easily fall into the trap of trying to push more into the schedule than time allows. It's also hard because our activities do not fit nicely into boxes called "subjects." Every homeschooler (maybe every parent?) fights an ongoing battle against the questions Am I doing enough? and Is my child behind? When another mother asks these questions around me, I always quip, “enough for what? Behind whom???” But I confess to not handling the questions as confidently for myself and my own students. I have to work at it. It's worth the effort, though, when the result is a restful rhythm that allows us to enjoy each other and life as we move through our learning goals. Most days. *grin*

In a coming post, I will talk about a few more things we have prioritized that help us continue "school" while staying in line with the values Mr. Cyrus and I have settled on, including our parent-child book club and poetry tea time.

Other posts in this series:

Release

Rest

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Wed, 01 Jun 2016 00:35:00 +0000

original photo by John Goode

I’ve had the question above pinned to the edge of our memory work board for at least eight months now. The question, aroused by a variety of sources, bothered me because I was pretty sure the liturgy of our day did NOT wholly reflect what we value. I felt it was crucial to our well being as a family - when the routines of our day don't match who we are, rest is not found - yet I couldn't figure out how to address it.

These things take a lot of mulling-over time, it seems.

We first have to clarify all our terms in this context, particularly liturgy. The dictionary definition is this: a rite or body of rites prescribed for public worship; or: a customary repertoire of ideas, phrases, or observances.

Rolling those two definitions together in the context of daily life in general (and the home in particular), I understand the word liturgy to refer to the rhythms, habits, and practices around which we order our day. What comes first? To what do we give the most time? For what do we carve out space, no matter the chaos of any particular day? And what do we squeeze into the fringe hours and sometimes drop all together?

Liturgy.

Next we need to know what we value in the first place? I cannot know if my day is ordered around what I value if I don't even know for sure what my values are.

I’ve always been heavily influenced by the philosophies of nineteenth century classical educator Charlotte Mason. Last summer and fall, I spent a great deal of time immersing myself deeper in her ideas. Principles like "Education is the science of relations," and "We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children," have been swirling around in my head ever since then. During the 2015-2016 academic year, I also started studying the concept of Leadership Education, also known as Thomas Jefferson Education, which has its roots in (among other things) the idea of mentoring students along a path to maturity.

Discussing these philosophies in detail is beyond the scope of this post, but please do contact me if you'd like resources for further investigation.

Early this year, I added to the brain swirling when I participated in Sarah Mackenzie’s Master class, Focus and Align. In this class, Sarah walks you through clarifying your end goal, your vision for what your student will be like when they leave your home, and how you and they will reflect on their education and life. (This class is available inside the membership section of Read Aloud Revival site.) This class has helped me mesh together the things I have been studying and desiring for my home and my homeschool into a more coherent vision. Near the end of the class, Sarah helps her participants create a "Rule of 6," in which you get crystal clear on the values that will govern your home and life. (The Rule of Six idea was inspired by this blog post by Melissa Wiley.)

You know by now my inclination for choosing words that are powerful to me and using them as overarching goals for my life. This rule of six business is really just another spin on the "one word" strategy so, of course, I love it. Also of course, I couldn't settle on just six words. I managed to get Mr. Cyrus involved in mulling over these ideas, and this is what we came up with.

Cyrus Family Values

original photo by Ronan Shenhav

The meshing of these ideas has helped me reorient our daily life so that it flows more authentically from who we are as a family and as homeschoolers, and allows us to truly live and learn from a place of rest. All the details on that in the next post.

Other posts in this series:

A Homeschool Routine that Nourishes

Release

Release

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Thu, 07 Apr 2016 00:41:00 +0000

Part of my self-care work this year involves releasing the story I have been carrying around about what defines a good mother. My inner story is (still) far too focused on results and control - control of my productivity, the state of home, and my children's attitudes and behavior . . even control of my own behavior. A good mom keeps a reasonably ordered home. She always rises early enough to meet her children when they wake and she never hides in bed until she hears banging or screeching. A good mom usually responds with gentleness and cleverness to her children's "mal-adaptive" behaviors. She does not allow herself to become overwhelmed by typical childish behavior and throw her own version of a tantrum. A good mom has children whose behavior steadily improves over time (ha!). A good mom does not hide in the bathroom with chocolate and text her husband that he'd better get himself home in the next twenty minutes if he wants said home to still be standing.

Ahem.

Do you see this?? I'm crushing myself each day before I even begin. Maybe you do the same thing, with your own story?

This list. . . these are all excellent things to strive for or to avoid (especially that last one,) but, inevitably, daily life with growing, testing children and an imperfect mother slides off the rails. If this type of list is how we define success at the end of the day, depression will be looming before long.

I'm working on releasing my “good mom” story because it misdirects me and serves everyone in my family poorly. I am ceasing to put pressure on myself that doesn't belong. Instead, I nourish my mama-heart with this story:

A good mother seeks God for wisdom and strength, knowing he loves her children far more perfectly than she ever could. She is intentional in her daily life as much as she is able, and compassionate with herself when she is not. She takes responsibility for filling her own tank and caring for her own soul so that she can pour out love on those entrusted to her care. She openly models this for her children. She acknowledges that she will sometimes be tired and cranky and selfish and make mistakes (including some big ones), but she also knows how important it is for her children to see her demonstrating apology, humility, and forgiveness. A good mom keeps showing up.

A mother who believes this kind of story does not fall daily under the sword of her own expectations. A mother who carries this kind of story can find true rest, and everyone around her breathes easier because of it. Abundant life.

I set aside some time the other day to copy out my new story by hand. The old story was zipping around in my brain and dragging me down again. It was so helpful and rest-producing to just linger over each word and settle on the end. A good mom keeps showing up. Maybe she first has a little alone time in the closet with some dark chocolate (sans texting), but she keeps. showing. up.

Other posts in this series:

what if you chose to believe the best about yourself?

A Roadmap to Abundance?

Rest

Dear weary mom, who finds herself under water

A Roadmap to Abundance?

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Sat, 19 Mar 2016 23:31:00 +0000

From part one of this post, found here:
"I want more of that. A year without perfectionism, without striving. A year in which I live and move from a state of rest. In which I more fully grasp my salvation in Christ, my worthiness apart from anything I accomplish or mess up."

Here are the words I settled on to guide my year, which I am posting in March just as a friendly little sucker punch to the recovering Type A Perfectionist in me.

After musing over the previous year, I made a list of possible goal words. A weird little shiver came over me when I came to abundance. Christians often talk about “abundant life” in Christ (referring to John 10:10 especially), and though I deeply desire this, I don't feel I've experienced it with any kind of consistency. I want to (and have already started to) reorient myself around this frame for the learning and living for the year ahead. Abundant joy. Abundant peace. Abundant grace. Abundant life.

The three words below are a little road map toward my goal (because I seem to always need the "how-to" part spelled out for me).

Release – let go of the old stories of how I ought to be, of how life ought to be. Let go of old habits of grasping, of anxiety and expectation. I love this definition from the online Oxford Dictionaries: "allow (something) to return to its resting position by ceasing to put pressure on it."

Rest – true rest that restores, that is an ongoing state of being and not a temporary pause. Margin in my schedule, calm in my emotions, Trust in my spirit.

Nourish – feed my body, relationships, and soul with good and lovely things as much as I am able and, with compassion, go back to releasing when I am not.

P.S. I wanted to point you toward a blog post that urged observation and awareness instead of rash resolutions at the start of the calendar year. Alas, I have lost it in the vast wilderness of The Internet. Instead, I'll just point out that many people who made 2016 resolutions in January have already failed or forgotten them and are being forced to make new ones right about now. So there.

Other posts in this series:

One Word - 2016 (part one of this post)

Release

More "one word" posts.

One Word - 2016

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Tue, 01 Mar 2016 05:54:00 +0000

My word for 2016 is. . .I don't know!

insk0r via flickr

When I got married, one of my bridesmaids gathered quotes and advice from the women at my bridal shower and put them into a book for me. Many wise words fill those pages. The card that has stuck out the most is the shortest - three words, written in my mother’s distinctive, left-handed cursive. Actually, it was just one word repeated three times, from a woman who knows me so very well: Relax. Relax. Relax. This card and her words have come to my mind often these past two months as I have pondered my guiding word for 2016.

(Yes, this is my “one word for the new year” post (or at least part of it). Yes, I know it’s almost March. However, it’s not quite March, and last year, it was well into March before I got my “one word for the new year” post even drafted. So I’ll call this a win.)

Part of my delay is that I’ve been resisting the words to which I’ve been most drawn. The "words for the year" I have chosen in the past have always been active words. It’s a goal right? A resolution. You want to get something done, or change a wayward part of yourself, or reform some section of the your world. But instead of a go-get-‘em kind of word, I’m finding myself lingering over words like wholeness, restoration, and peace.

I’ve spent the last few years being extremely active and purposeful. I am good at disciplining myself, I have that tool in my belt. I can grit my teeth, buckle down, dig deep, yank on those bootstraps, and get things done. I can usually keep doing The Next Right Thing, despite whatever is going on around me.

What I have gained over the past few years is the ability to say yes to scary, challenging things. I’ve moved out of state. I’ve made friends with strangers just because. I’ve started and led discussion and learning groups. I've been led to talk about my faith with people like this woman who reported that she laid her "special" jewelry out under the full moon to "cleanse" it. And I've leaned into the painful task of loving a child who didn’t yet know how to love back. However. Looking back over last year in particular, I also recognize my strength in the passive. The word anchor in itself is a purposeful passive. You drop anchor and hold.

This year held a lot of trauma, frustration, and heartache, and more than a few of my own mistakes . . . but when I was journaling reflectively as 2015 turned into 2016, I realized how proud I am of myself and my family, and of this year. It was hard. And messy. Let’s not forget messy. Most of it did not go as I wanted or hoped. Still, I find myself looking over it lovingly, with a kind of serenity and unexpected accomplishment. I see endurance and perseverance, yes, but many moments of joy and triumph that grew out of simply praying and waiting. Instead of the facing of difficult challenges, the main reason I feel so content with how last year went was because of the daily minutia, the moment by moment capturing of my thoughts and turning them upward to my Jesus, which eased the burden of all that I carried. I’m left with a sense of compassion for myself, and humble pride that says, yes, that was the best I could do and it was good enough.

I want more of that.

And so I keep asking, Lord, which word do you want to echo in my life this upcoming year?

Find part two here.

Find other "one word" posts.

A year in review

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Mon, 14 Dec 2015 04:54:00 +0000

Every year I make a photo album for our family. December is the best time for such things because of all the sales, and I like to have the book ready for sharing when we visit family at Christmas. This year, I mostly forgot about it until the last minute, so I spent last weekend wading through well over 1000 photos, choosing layouts, and adjusting margins. It's a lot of work. It's also full of remembering and reflecting, which are generally things I like to do.

However, I didn't consider how the changes in our family would impact this project until I opened up the "Winter 2015" folder.

Photographs can make life look peachier than it really was at the time, I know this. But they also reveal the beauty that was missed while we were too caught up in the details.

It was so painful going over these photos. It is hard to see what looked like excellent bonding and healing in Allie, and then think about the summer and fall, when she was so angry and triggered. It is hard to see a photo and remember that there had been an explosion right before or right after the camera clicked.

my four kids.

For example. On Mother's Day, we went to a little amusement park - the kind with a big slide, bumper cars, and mini golf. It was supposed to be light-hearted and fun, and it was. . .at times. It was also really, really difficult for all of us. Mother's Day isn't exactly full of warm fuzzies when you're an orphan, and when sadness is too much for a child, they very often fall back on anger to get them through. (See Jen Hatmaker's post Parenting Kiddos Who Sabotage Big Days.)

This day is a little window into our lives this past year. Good start, everyone having fun. Yes, we've got this!! Then something happens to trigger fear/shame/sadness and the day erupts in rage. We as parents hold on, try to be steady and keep everyone safe, emotionally and physically. We try to move towards a deeply wounded child, and somehow succeed. Another plank in the bridge between her heart and ours is built. We all come back together, more or less intact. Each time Allie challenged us with her behavior, saying "Well, can you love me if I do THIS??!!" we met her (only by the grace and power of Jesus) with a resounding yes. You are safe and we are here, even in the ugly and the pain. Each time we made it through a crisis (big and small) I would think, 'we are making it! We are going to make it!' But I got far too attached to what "making it" would look like, and when it would happen. Expectations are such a killer!

I look back over this year, and I feel the same way I did when I wrote the posts explaining Allie's arrival:

"I'm writing this before Allie arrives because I want the story of our path up to this point to stand on its own. Who knows what it will really be like for us? Maybe we will be a poor fit and we will struggle constantly for the next two years. Maybe our timing will be perfect and we will each change each other's lives in amazing ways. Maybe some of both.

The truth is that this journey has been Spirit-led every step of the way, and that remains true no matter what happens over the next few years and beyond.

This story is about hearing a whisper and responding by continually laying it before God, even (and especially) when it appears sort of impossible."

Many of you have asked about Allie - if we've heard from her and how she is doing. The answers are "yes," and "not great." We had hoped she could visit around Christmas time, but her choices while at her group home have made that really unlikely. However, she does stay in contact. Cards, letters, texts, Facebook, phone calls - lots of communication going back and forth. Even though we are very concerned about the choices she has been making, we are so grateful that she feels connected to us still. Our story is still being written.

31 Days of Yoga-ish Behavior

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Sun, 18 Oct 2015 03:53:00 +0000

It's October, so there's all kinds of 31 Day blog series popping up. It's a fun writing challenge, and you can read more about it here if you are so inclined. I've done it once in the past, 31 Days of Yes,where I wrote about saying yes to things I normally wouldn't. Like running without something chasing me.

However, I haven't even written 31 posts yet this year, so this didn't seem a realistic goal for right now. Apparently I felt left out though, because I decided to write one post about 31 days of a certain activity. That's kind of the same, right?

sort of like this. via

All this started because one of my cherubs asked me what I wanted for my birthday, which is next month. Immediately I thought, "I want this stupid knot in my shoulders to ease." As I stopped to think about it, I made a little list for myself. For my birthday, I want more relax, less grasping at control; more peace, less worry; more joy; less over-analyzing; perhaps most importantly, more strong, less "baby" belly.

And then I thought some more, because that's what I do. (I can't tell you how many times my mother has told me I think toooooo much.) Anyway. These things I want? They are all things I have the power to give myself - especially in light of the recent changes in our home.

So I started doing either yoga or pilates every day. (Not the "you are a beautiful flower bending to the goddess" type of yoga, justsoyouknow.) Stretch, strengthen, breathe. I told the kids about my gift to myself because they get excited about goals like this and are quite adept at being relentless little reminders. So multiple times a day I hear, "Mom! Did you do your yoga yet??" Excellent! I'm not strong right now, so I just do what I can. There's one 30 minute sequence that I just get up and walk away in the middle of. I can't do all of it, so I take a little coffee break and come back after five minutes. Drives the kids nuts to skip exercises commanded by the authoritative lady in striped spandex, but I tell them, I'll get there, there's time. The point is consistency, which is a kind of anchor itself.

Here's the fabulous part. I've managed to hit every day, even if only for 5 minutes. Ok, that's not the fabulous part - this is: I went to the chiropractor yesterday and he was making all these approving noises as he checked my spine. He made a small adjustment and then said I was in good shape. I told him about my yoga, and he said, "yes, you seemed a lot less tense." We both agreed this could be due to . . .er . . .the recent decrease in environmental stress factors, but the exercise certainly helped as well.

Stephanie Spence, via

standing in the gap

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Tue, 22 Sep 2015 21:33:00 +0000

Jesus, who, for the joy set before him, endured the cross and disregarded its shame.

(Hebrews 12:2-4)

I've been thinking about this verse so much lately in light of our current struggle to persevere in caring for our foster daughter. Of Jesus in the garden of Gethsemane, knowing that following God and offering his life to brutal death would blast through the chains that bind us to our sin, yet still beseeching God for another way. Yet for the joy set before him, Jesus complied: "not my will, but yours, be done." (Luke 24:42)

Of course there is joy, but there is also pain whenever you bring a child into your home and your heart, and this is especially true when the child comes in with their own wounds. In the case of an abused or neglected child, the caregiver takes on those wounds, to some extent, in order lead the child as far as they can down the path to healing.

The caregiver knows there will be pain because she stands in the gap for this child, and, at least for a time, takes upon herself the sins and sorrows of another, in order to offer the child safety, healing, and freedom. She takes on the sins of a mother who was abused herself and lost her battle against drug addiction, of a father who walked away from his family, and the sorrows of a child caught in their wake. These sins that she did not commit fall on her and her family and their support network almost daily as they all fight for the heart of the wounded child. Such upheaval and anguish. It is impossible to know the outcome. This standing in the gap, it requires so much and it is sometimes poignantly unfair.

And yet Grant and I have been laying down our lives. Our whole family has. It isn't always pretty. It isn't especially rewarding at this point; in fact, it feels an awful lot like defeat. All we really have is the transient satisfaction of knowing we are responding to a clear and definite calling, that this child who has suffered so much will have a better chance in life because we are holding back some of that suffering right now. We do not "fix" or heal her (although I confess to hoping for this at times). We just keep showing up, teaching skills, offering love and acceptance, and refusing to be dragged down by our flaws and failures and the seemingly insurmountable nature of the task. . .and we continue trusting in the One who led us to this child in the first place.

Jesus’ struggle on our behalf was not the result of His weakness, but the outcome of His faithfulness. It was Him willingly choosing the cost of our joy over the price of His pain. His suffering brings meaning to ours. His struggle brings purpose to ours. They remind us that the gospel is nothing if not the ability of Jesus to bring great beauty out of broken things. This gospel frees us from the burden to carry the weight of redemption. It reminds us that only Jesus can save and restore. Our job is simply to be faithful...expectantly, hopefully, anxiously faithful.

And in your Garden of Gethsemane moments, when the weight of brokenness brings you to your knees before God and your heart cries out for a different path to redemption, you can trust that Jesus has been there before you and that Jesus is there with you now - sympathizing, holding, understanding and encouraging you to drink from the cup again, and again, and again.

Jason Johnson, Reframing Your Season of Struggle

We have fought hard to be steady and faithful for Allie, but standing in the gap for her right now? It means letting her go. Allie has reached a point where she knows in her head, and even in her heart, that we are all a family, but her past won't let her truly understand what that means and her wounds will not let her fully relax into the love we are showing her. Just being in our home is such a stressful, triggering experience for her right now that she can barely stand it most days, and so she has chosen to be moved to a group home back in her home county about six hours away. Our mutual desire is to remain connected, to stay as much a family as we can over the distance, but there is . . .distress. . . on all sides of this separation.

Previous posts on writing

And as I write that, I realize that this pain is a deep answer to prayer, for the pain comes because we have succeeded in opening our hearts to each other. I prayed when Allie first came that I would be able to love her without holding anything back, without trying to protect myself, and I prayed that she would be able to receive that love. Though the future is muddled, I can clearly see a thousand answered prayers in the time that we have had Allie in our home.

So I'm leaning into the realization that we were as faithful as we possibly could be to this calling of loving a hurting child, and that we will continue to do so, whatever it might look like, but always full of hope and trust.

Anchor - Morning Time

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Fri, 07 Aug 2015 04:39:00 +0000

See the first post in the anchor series here.

If I've done anything right this year, it's securing the anchor of Morning Time in our homeschool day. This practice has drawn our family together and made it possible for actual learning to happen even when the rest of the day is spent helping everyone learn not to be selfish little heathens.

(See Cindy Rollins's blog Morning Time Moms for more details than you could ever want about Morning Time.)

Morning Time. In short: we all pile onto the couches and read, practice poetry, pray, write in our gratitude journals, and whatever else I have planned or am inspired to do at the last minute. This year, we will add in our Latin memory work since all four kids will be in Classical Conversations, each at their own level. One thing I do not do is our fiction read aloud; I save that for later in the day.

Here's how it happens: my phone alarm goes off around nine o'clock during the traditional school year (ten in the summer). This gives the younger three enough time to eat and wander around getting into trouble for awhile, and it's late enough that the older student feels there is some benefit to being stuck home with three little kids instead of the fun, exciting world of public high school which most certainly resembles Glee. Post alarm, Ava, Wyatt, and Charlotte tramp into the living room. Sometimes they are nowhere to be found and I have to go round them up. Allie stumbles down the stairs and collapses on the couch. I smile at her, and she moans, "What?! I'm up!" We start off with prayer for wisdom and open hearts, and dive into our Bible reading for the day. Then we move on to the other topics. I keep our current books and a folder with our memory work in a basket near the couch, and we try to keep our bibles nearby too so we don't have to hunt for anything in order to get started.

This may be the only thing I have been able to be consistent at this past year, and it has been hard. When my perfectionist side rises up I feel genuine despair. Morning Time almost never goes smoothly the whole way through (and sometimes it's just an inch shy of a complete disaster).
When I take the long view, however, I see the discussions and the ideas and the laughter, and the folding in of a child who wouldn't read one word aloud when she came to us, but this week voluntarily read an entire chapter to our wiggly group. I see the minutes of smoothness piled up together, and know we are building relationships and habits. All these gathered moments are adding up to a rich learning lifestyle for my children as we gather, tune our hearts to our Creator, and learn something in an enjoyable and lovely manner.

After all, isn't this what anchoring is all about - finding a small habit or practice that binds you to truth, and then doing it every day, a little bit at a time?

"One of our earliest memorized poems was :

Little drops of water,
Little grains of sand,
Make the mighty ocean,
And the beauteous land.

Can you guess how often some one in our home says, "Little drops of water....?"
Almost daily. It has even shown up in timed SAT essays.
That is the sort of sentiment that applies to everything I do as a mother. . . My Morning Time is a way to collect little grains of sand. It should not be a way to complicate life but a way to simplify it.
If you have something that you want your children to assimilate like poetry or scripture or music or Shakespeare, forget the grand schemes, forget what the Konos mom is doing down the street, start giving that thing one or two minutes of your time daily and watch the years roll by."

Cindy Rollins, Little Grains of Sand

Other posts in the Anchor series:

2015 - Anchor

Lent as an anchor

On being a mother who writes

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Tue, 04 Aug 2015 16:05:00 +0000

I tell myself, it's just a free write. Set the timer, just write. No pressure, just write. I even scroll up and type "fureeeee wruhiiiite" in the title. A free write is a writing that's free of purpose and confining structure, right? So then why it is it so difficult? Forcing the cursor across the screen for 10 minutes just to combat the freeze that's been going on in my writing life these many months; trying to keep the keys clicking softly so I don't analyze my ridiculous sentences, and so that creeping inertia doesn't get me. What are the semi-colon rules again? Whatever you do, self, don't stop to reread or do editing of any kind in a free write. Or would that be free-write?

"Almost all good writing begins with terrible first efforts. You need to start somewhere."

Anne Lamott, Bird By Bird

I've often blamed my lack of writing on my children. It feels like there are so many of them and their needs are even more numerous than their toys, and how could a homeschooling mother find any time to write anyway, now that she has four children filling up her heart and mind and time?

Unfortunately, I have come right up against the fact that this is a lie. For three weeks in June, my younger three children visited our family in Oregon. For one of those weeks, Allie was also gone on a mission trip, and the week after she was barely back because she was deeply involved in post-mission trip/summer break sleeping. So I had time, and lots of it. It's true that I felt very off balance during this period. Being a mother at my core, it took me some time to develop a rhythm that did not involve caring for young children. But still.

I've spent the last eight-ish years imagining that, once I was no longer consumed by mothering (which might in itself be a fantasy), I would rise early, have a nice quiet walk and breakfast, and then sit down with a steaming mug and do some writing to start my day. However, I had three weeks of basically zero child interaction before noon, and not once did I sit down to write in the morning, or the afternoon. Nope, not the evening either. Ok, I'm exaggerating. I think there were a few ten or fifteen minute snippets when I forced myself to tap away at the keys or scratch a pen across a notebook, but nothing beyond drivel ever came from it. What is the deal with that?

So it turns out it's me and not them. This is a bummer because, while I'm pretty good at complaining about them, I can actually do something about me. Thus the free-write. Ding!

So this particular anxiety is not about me in comparison to other people, though I do have that anxiety also, but that's not the one I'm dealing with here. This writing anxiety is that I want to express myself as pure and as close to the truth as I can. I want to be "in the right" about understanding myself and then expressing that here. . . Readers might make all manner of erroneous assumptions when reading this and I hate that I can't thoroughly explain myself to basically make myself look better. Thoroughly explaining myself would take many writing hours, writing hours of anxiety and "did I say this right", and "is this the best expression of what I'm going through and trying to communicate" angst.

Rene Tougas, Facing My Writing Anxiety

Summer Survival at Our House

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Sun, 07 Jun 2015 03:29:00 +0000

I usually take June completely off from scheduled school work. We all neeeeed the break by that point. We also have multiple birthdays, our anniversary, and an annual camping trip in the Oregon high desert mid-month. June ends up being plenty busy even without school work. However, for my sanity and theirs, I still require a few things and I heavily limit media time. For those of you who like details about other people's schedules (I sure do!), this post is for you!

Apparently the kids were so moved by their poetry recitation that they had to do back-bends.

On the days we don't have somewhere to be (like tennis or swim lessons), we continue starting our day with Morning Time. (Morning time includes talking about the day's schedule, bible reading, prayer, poetry, read aloud and sometimes more. More on that later.) We start at nine during the school year, but move the meeting to ten for our summer hours. This is especially nice down here in California because the kids end up staying up late to play outside as the evening cools down, and then sleep in later in the morning. On days we have lessons or other fun plans, we fit the morning meeting in wherever there's space in the day.

Additionally, I ask for two hours of reading from Ava and Allie, and one from Wyatt. This isn't too much of a hassle since they all love to read. I insert some of my own selections into their reading time. For example, Allie is preparing for Classical Conversations' Challenge program by reading the books from the level before Challenge A, and at least some of the books she will be starting in the fall. (I am also trying to get through this list for myself.)

I generally just tell them what I'm hoping they will do and then leave the books lying around and the younger ones gobble them up due to their curious natures and their love of reading. I've been choosing stories for Ava and Wyatt long enough now that they know I can be trusted to choose good books, so that helps too. I attempt the same strategy with Allie, and it sometimes works. If I get resistance, I start setting boundaries, such as, "sure, you can go to Georgia's house - right after you finish three chapters of The Hiding Place." This usually works for us.

For Allie, I'm also requiring a certain amount of exercise daily. The younger ones get their exercise by just being kids, so all I have to do is make sure they have enough free time to play. Allie is more reluctant, so I ask for her exercise to be done before the bulk of her media time. Her "workouts" usually come in the form of riding her bike to and from the DollarTree or going for a walk with me or, in desperate times, dragging herself up and down the stairs for fifteen minutes. This last one is my favorite because of the torture-esque sound effects that accompany the stair climbing.

So that's June. In July and August (with our Sabbath week falling right before Classical Conversations starts up again) we will continue with our ten o'clock morning time. Summer school for the younger students includes tennis, swimming and a few horseback riding lessons, daily math and reading, CC memory work review, and lots of nature study (including gardening) and fine arts. Allie is finishing up some credits, so she will be working on that in addition to her reading list. And our high school book discussion group will continue throughout the summer as people are available. Of course, all of this may be thrown out the window at a moment's notice for impromptu summer fun. That's one of my favorite things about homeschooling - weaving school and seasons and life all together.

The Sort-of End of Another Homeschool Year

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Thu, 04 Jun 2015 05:32:00 +0000

As you know, we are officially on our summer break. This year we have been trying out a Sabbath-type schedule where we go roughly six weeks on, one week off, with longer breaks around Christmas and summer. The last week of May would have been our sixth week before a longer break. However. When I found myself hiding in my room by ten on a Monday morning - after breaking up approximately twenty major emotional dramas - I realized the second to last week of May would work just as well. And so we were done. I am strongly reminded of this post from a few years ago about ending the school year without any fanfare, particularly this quote:

I like to remind myself that a commitment to lifelong learning frees us from the need to start and end at certain times.

Dropping It All, Rene Tougas

At a time when the "Last Weeks of School Blues" posts are starting to whip around social media (here's a particular favorite), I chose to embrace my homeschool freedom and be done. We'll start up again in early July, with our relaxed summer schedule and studies. More to come on that.

I have now been homeschooling a high schooler for nearly nine months. (Cheers, applause, and gifts of fine wine are all appropriate here.) It's taken that long to craft a rhythm that is true to how I mother my children, who I am as a homeschooling parent, and who Allie is as a student. When we started, I was reeling from the addition of an out-of-birth-order child into our family and trying to grow and adjust my parenting to meet her needs at the speed of light. So hard, and I wish I could have had more grace for myself. Anyway, the best I could do at that time was to simply "do school at home," mostly taking what would have happened in the classroom and just doing it at home. I wasn't happy because I wasn't being authentic to myself as a teacher. My student, who had almost always lived with kids her own age, (and was heavily influenced by frequent consumption of tv shows such about high schoolers as Glee) did not catch my vision for her education and, furthermore, found homeschooling with three small children rather *cough* less than desirable.

Poetry tea time, and my first donut in three gluten-free years.

But over time, we started to get it. I chose better novels and ~~forced~~ included Allie in our morning read aloud. We ditched the math that just wasn't working, and started using only Life of Fred because it worked. We added in Speech and Debate, a really fun creative writing guide, and volunteering experiences. Just recently, we managed to get a teen book discussion group going. (8-10 teenagers all piled on my couches joking with each other. . .that's a new one for me!) I stopped relying on stifling study guides (which I hate anyway) and just waded out into literature analysis with my trusty list of Socratic questions (see Teaching the Classics) and the use of the five common topics of invention. Allie wrote up some research questions related to child development disorders, and we built a whole semester class around them, adjusting them as we went along, and ended with our entire family watching and discussing the excellent movie Temple Grandin. I let out the reigns more and more, and Allie practiced managing her time and planning her week on her own. Now, at the close of the academic year, I am playing more to my strengths as a creative, eclectic educator and we are working with an education experience that is much more organic, fluid, and student-driven. Hurray!!

It's still difficult for Allie to find motivation some days. She often still wishes she could just go hang out at the local high school before school, after school, between classes, and during lunch. (I told her to have some friends come hang out with me and the littles for a quesadilla lunch but she didn't seem to think that was quite the same.) Occasionally, Allie and I have deep and profound disagreements over things like whether laying on the trampoline while your siblings bounce around you counts as P.E. or whether a paragraph counts as an 5 page essay or not. It's still rough sometimes. But I actually heard her tell someone the other day that she liked her homeschool freedom to build her own classes, do her schoolwork in her pajamas, be done by noon some days, and enjoy more success overall. This from the girl who used to tell anyone who would listen that she was being tortuously homeschooled (at home) against her will (at home). It's almost like this homeschooling thing is working. . .

Figuring out Allie's school definitely took the lion's share of my attention and energy this year, but I don't want to gloss over the other students at here at Cyrus Academy for the Unusual Child. Ava and Wyatt continued with Classical Conversations' Foundations program this year, and that was, as always, an encouraging and effective mainstay in our school week. I heart Classical Conversations. Ava is in approximately second grade and Wyatt approximately kindergarten. Somehow, they both made substantial progress despite the chaos and will be in third-ish and first-ish grades next year. Wyatt has been reading for sometime, but really turned a corner and has become a voracious independent reader of chapter books. We go to the library once a week and it's almost not enough.

This year, Ava and Wyatt learned multiplication and Latin grammar. They memorized poems, hymns, and bible verses. They studied famous artists and composers and practiced the habits of gratitude, service, and unconditional love. They beefed up their tennis skills, researched chemical elements, bugs, plants, and whatever else caught their attention, and stacked their brains with what is probably several years worth of American geography and history. They went on a cattle round up, visited several nature preserves and conquered some difficult hikes. Ava loves to write and she and I formed a creative writing group with Allie, based around the book Writer to Writer (by the author of Ella Enchanted).

This is is truly an amazing list. I had to frequently set aside lessons to work on character building and training, and most of the time it felt like nothing was getting done. And yet. . .somehow it all adds up to a fantastic year of stretching, growing, and learning.

Last fall's back-to-school post and pictures can be found here.

We just might make it. . .

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Tue, 02 Jun 2015 21:02:00 +0000

We are officially on our summer break, so I'm hoping to get above my posting average of zero posts per month.

This year has peeled away another layer of selfishness, perfectionism, and pride that definitely needed to go, but oh my has it been painful. And it's difficult to figure out how to write about it in such a public space. How can I be both authentic and encouraging about this year full of trial, struggle, beauty and strength, depression, anxiety, blow ups and melt downs, and even laughter and triumph? How can I write with honesty about the hard spaces, knowing that all of the children will likely find this blog sooner or later?

This quote from Rene Tougas resonates deeply with my struggle today:

So why do this? Why blog about the hard stuff. Because when people keep hard stuff hidden, especially those of us with a public voice, there's a tendency to believe I'm the only one. In my pain its so easy to believe the lie that I'm the only one experiencing this. And that's lonely. In your pain, you may feel likewise.

But you're not the only one.

Crisis, failures, and disappointments involving our children, marriage, finances, and health; you are never the only one experiencing the hurt, confusion, and sorrow that defines, in part, what it means to be human.

You're not the only one walking around with a box of tissues. You're not the only one feeling the sting of regret. You're not the only one wanting to take back words and actions. You're not the only one needing to forgive yourself. You're not the only one looking for the path in pea-soup fog.

Hard Stuff, Rene Tougas

But actually, this is not a new struggle for me (or anyone who blogs about their personal life), so probably I should just get over it. I worry so much about about that balance between an upbeat attitude, realness (it's totally a word), and other people's privacy too, that I end up writing nothing. Curse you, perfectionism!!

Anyway. People quietly ask how "the transition" is going, and I always want to laugh because summing up what it has been like to bring a sixteen year old into our family in a few chit chat sentences is nearly impossible. It's been the hardest thing I've attempted so far. It's also been deeply satisfying to persevere and start to see the fruits of all the teaching and patiently reassuring and line-drawing and hand-holding and deep-breathing.

We've turned a corner, though, in this past month and it has been such a relief to have easier, cozier days. I can start to look back on the past eight or so months and see the lessons we are learning together and the many ways I've grown as a parent. Over and over, I had the opportunity to practice unconditional love for my entire stressed out family, but especially for this precious child-woman who worked very hard to prove that I would let her down. I have honed the fine art of using the question as a parenting tool and it has made a powerful difference in our tense, attachment-disorder-triggered situations. I have also learned all over again how to lean on my faith, and how to reach out for support from the people who love me. My husband and I have deepened our understanding of how to parent like a team. My three little children are learning how to see past a person's behavior to what their true need is. My older child has learned/is learning that we are constant in our love and forgiveness, despite the mess of family life.

We have all experienced that family is truly beautiful - and something worth fighting for.

Sunday Morning Musings: Early Morning Comfort

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Mon, 13 Apr 2015 04:28:00 +0000

I value authenticity in a writer. I bring as much of it to this blog as I can. But, as others have said, our lives intersect with many others and often the deep, core things in our lives should not be shared publicly out of respect for the other people involved.
And yet there is this longing to share and connect, especially in the bleary hours of the night, when circumstances and fears press us from sleep and we abandon our beds in search of, if not comfort, at least distraction.
I rose around four yesterday morning, after hours of pretending sleep was just about to descend on me - like that sneeze that you feel coming but hasn't quite burst out yet. I was worn and distinctly un-hopeful. As I realized defeated was my main emotion, I started asking myself, but. . . am I?
Because the truth is that a daughter of the King does not live in defeat, that defeat can only be real if there remains no hope. But. I. have. hope. Often we believe the lie that we are defeated, when Jesus reminds us we are more than conquerors. More than conquerors!

And Jesus whispers again, your emptiness and my abundance are a perfect match. This past Lent of stuffing myself full of scripture rewards me as I putter around my kitchen, making tea and listening to the verses swirling in my head. Let not your heart be fearful or troubled (John 14:27). In Me is life and this life is the light of all (John 1:4). More. And fragments of song: I am pressed but crushed; persecuted not abandoned; struck down but not destroyed.

Despite the weight of whatever's pressing in on me, on you, we are not destroyed. When we call to him, he answers in love and care. I am not defeated and there is hope and audacious joy.

To find joy in this day, you must live within its boundaries. Do not worry about tomorrow, or get stuck in the past. There is abundant life in my presence today.

Jesus Calling

lent as an anchor

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Tue, 31 Mar 2015 06:15:00 +0000

Lent. A period of repentance and renewal. A time of anchoring ourselves in our faith - in the age-old pattern of emptying ourselves of, well. . . ourselves, and filling back up with Jesus. By choosing to take a new expectation upon ourselves (either by giving up, or adding in), we place Someone else higher than ourselves. We remember that we are dust, and to dust we shall return.

Lent isn’t about forfeiting as much as it’s about formation.

We renounce to be reborn; we let go to become ‘little Christs’. It’s about this: We break away to become.”

Ann Voskamp, A Holy Experience

For Lent this year, I've (tried) to give up scrolling aimlessly through Facebook and Pinterest. In it's place, I took on a challenge to read with my family through the Gospels in 40 days. With Easter right around the corner, we are now about halfway through Luke, so we will likely not finish until late April. But that's just fine. This time of focus has been lovely for drawing my family in together and, for myself, clarifying what was missing from last year. . . an anchor of any kind.

During this Lent, this whole year, I am letting go even more of my old liturgy of self-reliance and self-condemnation. The failures and pain that have limited me as a mother have passed away through the love and work of Christ on the cross, but the practice of living this out is daily. Take the practical experience of our family Lenten bible reading, for example.

Reading the Bible has been an almost daily discipline for some time, but reading larger chunks as a family definitely stretched everyone. Some days, it was this beautiful time of the kids asking great questions and all of us having these amazing conversations about deep, enduring truths. Many other days, I would have to stop every other line to gather someone back in, or tell someone to stop drumming on someone else, or explain to an irritated older someone that we are teaching far more than just bible reading in our little circle. Some days, it was so ugly that I stopped reading, dropped my head in my hands, and prayed aloud to God to give me the strength not to shake any of these hapless heathens (or something like that).

Now as we are nearing the home stretch and I think back on all of our reading time, I marvel at what we have accomplished as a family. This is exactly what Lent and anchoring are about - offering up my efforts from a deep awareness of how little I actually bring to the table. It's not about how well I read or manage my family, or how my children soak up every word and never ask wheeeeennnnn are we going to be done. This Lent, I managed to let go of my expectations of how our bible reading time would look and just show up every day. It is for this reason alone that I can look on our endeavor as a success rather than pick it apart into all its failings. This, for me, is progress.

photo via, words via

Lent. "A time to let go of excuses for failings and shortcomings; a time to stop hanging on to whatever goodness we perceive in ourselves; a time to ask God to show us what we really look like." I'm not sure where I copied that quote from, but I love it because it points out exactly what I need to do. It may sound kind of harsh, but I think it's actually freeing. We cease to worry about whether we are failing or succeeding and just show up, letting God do the rest.

God is always working. During this time of intense scripture intake, my sweet Ava decided to take the step of faith of being baptized. Also during this time, Allie heard the whispers of a Creator who loves her dearly and responded by giving her life and heart to Jesus. Both girls will be baptized on Easter. Of course I know that many, many things were woven together to cause the changes in Ava and Allie's hearts; yet, being saturated in the word of God for the past 40 days was certainly one of them.

via

Other posts in the Anchor series
2015 - Anchor

2015 - Anchor

noreply@blogger.com (Danielle) — Sun, 15 Mar 2015 05:35:00 +0000

We are still in the first half of the year, so I can still write a New Year goal type post, right?

Dear Blog, I have missed you! Oh sure, I wrote a few half-posts, full of nonsense and bad grammar, but I found myself unable to write anything worth sharing for months. A wave of change swept over my family and I sort of went under for a while. Look, I made a flow chart (with misspellings) to help me understand my messed-up self.

I approached 2014 with determination, choosing the word climb to define the brave and steadfast following of Jesus that I desired for my life. I felt there were changes ahead and I wanted to meet them in a manner that pointed everyone around me back to God.

From last year's post:

I love this word climb because it feels so purposeful and so courageous, both of which I pray to be every day of this year. I'm not near the top of anything right now. I'm in the intense middle, where, if I look too far down, I get really dizzy, and if I look too far up, I sob a little.

And oh my, were there changes! An out of state move and the serendipitous welcoming of a teenager into our family.

So climb I did. I was purposeful. I said yes to those big things, and also to small things like uncomfortable situations with new people (see: introvert). A quality I usually have at my disposal is will-power, and consequently I was pretty successful at my goal. (This is not to be confused with stubbornness. Definitely not stubbornness.) I worked really hard to be brave, keep my eyes forward, and take on life in a way that allowed God to use me. I made things happen and I got things done.

And also? I suffered. Another special quality I have is the ability to so lose myself in the trees that I completely miss the forest. It seems we need the forest too - that clarifying big picture that keeps us headed the right direction and focused on what is true and beautiful.

All fall, I struggled through our transition from a family of five to a family of six. It was very. . . intense. The process of weaving Allie into our family has been at the same time smoother than I thought possible, and also harder and more painful than I imagined. It's like when you have a new baby, and everyone asks, "Was it an easy birth? Is she an easy baby?" Um, what? Even an "easy" birth is still freaking childbirth. Even an "easy" baby, whom you love fiercely, results in bleary-eyed night feedings, stumbling around in three day old clothes with unpleasant substances splattered on them, and wondering what in the heck you just did to your life. The adjustment to four children has been an adjustment. Adding in homeschooling a high school student has required a steep learning curve as well.

But I think all of that would have been challenging-but-manageable except for one thing: my expectations. Misapplied expectations crush the joy right out of life. I wanted God to call me, and I wanted to respond with faith, but I also wanted it to look and go my way. I grieve when I think how much more difficult I made the transition on everyone with the expectations I laid upon myself.

The importance of the work I do as a mother and an educator surrounds me. I want to be excellent, as I think all mothers do, because of the vital nature of the work. I am extremely mindful of the short time we have with Allie, which has made me much more aware of the short time any of us have with our children, and I sort of panicked trying to accomplish years' worth of work in a few months. Not good.