The Bowin School for One Small Brown Child

Last fall, we made a very big decision for our family and decided to homeschool E through 4th grade.  We made the choice for a lot of reasons, none of which are exciting enough to detail here. Suffice it to say that we weren't happy with the school he was in, and the other various options were not very desirable either.  Since I was homeschooled for 4 years and loved it immensely, I don't have the same biases against it that most people (including my dearly beloved husband) do.  For anyone who's contemplating it, I think the most important factors are choosing a clearly defined curriculum and making sure that your child has plenty of opportunities for socializing, since they won't be doing it in the school room any more.

So for the first point, the curriculum, we started with the Sonlight curriculum, which is a reading-based, Christian program that my mom used waaaay back when we were homeschooled. One of the best things about homeschooling is the ability to pick what your child is going to learn.  With Sonlight, you choose from several different programs within each subject, depending on what you want to emphasize. For instance, this year, we chose a 4th grade world history/geography program, and the science program focuses on electricity and magnetism.  The core program is made up of history and geography combined with the language arts: in short, E will read a short textbook chapter on a country or a spotlight in history, and then read a novel that incorporates those ideas.  It's fun. Some of my favorite books of all time were books that I first read as part of a curriculum (like Witch of Blackbird Pond and Johnny Tremain). We also have the ability to add in whatever "electives" we like. (But he doesn't get the choice, he just has to do them...) This semester, we added journal writing (D comes up with some hilarious prompts), world religions, letter writing, and typing.  Chores figure prominently as a part of his day, and he regularly washes, dries and folds his own laundry, sweeps, dusts and vacuums, and cleans the bathrooms.  Manual labor is very educational, you see!

As far as socializing, E's best friend lives down the street from us, and there are about 4 or 5 other boys his age that live in this neighborhood. In the summer, they form a regular little hoodlum gang, running around the park, jumping over fences, and generally being a fairly well-behaved little bunch of nuisances.  In the winter, they're mostly restricted to indoor play, which they do almost every day.  E's also been on the same soccer team for 3 seasons now, and they practice twice a week during the season. Practice slash play around on the soccer fields and drive their poor coach nuts.  Homeschooling is a situation where it would admittedly be nicer for E if he had a sibling closer to his age, something he pointed out quite early in the process, but we manage quite well.

I think my favorite part about homeschooling is that it's fun to know exactly what E is working on in school on any given day, because then we talk about it at the dinner table or when something comes up while watching television or driving around town on errands.  When we play games, Spartans and Trojans and Romans figure prominently. When E helps D cook, they talk about random science and math topics.  School isn't limited to a certain time of our day, it's all day long. And most of the time, E doesn't even realize it.

Hope

You stood in the aisle
And I will always see you there
Your heart pouring from an open gaze
As I struggled to give you the only gift I could
What comfort can anyone mortal offer
For the loss of a child
I wouldn't even let myself weep
My emotions so unworthy
Guilty, aware that my two
One, tall and the light that had led my life
One, small and so long-awaited
Both safe
How could I even look you in the eye
How could I share loss in human words,
Phrases of hope and resurrection and love
When your son is gone

Yet, you stood there,
So alone, so fragile
I wonder how you could bear to keep breathing,
keep your heart beating
under such assault
And I did it for you
The song you asked for
My heart, my sorrow wrapped inside
It ached as I pulled it forth
As you stood there in the aisle
Gazing at me with such desperation
Too much loss for any hope of relief
And finally, finally, I let myself see you
Under cover of a melody
And someone else's words
I said everything I could
I felt your soul grasping
I felt your hand in mine
And I gave you everything I had

Later, when the comfort of ritual was over,
And uncharted life still left to be lived
How could you be so brave:
You asked if you could hold her,
my survivor's guilt,
my own sweet babe
I laid her in a mother's empty arms
You smiled at her with no trace of fear
And I found she could give more than I ever could
Such a small bandage to cover such a wound

If my mother could hear how much I whine...

Yesterday, I had a busy day.

On my way home from work, I was convinced that it had been a bad day. When I got home, I told my husband that I felt as if I had gotten a slight breather at lunch time, but otherwise was going at full steam, non-stop, without a single break.

And as I said it, the thought came to me, "Why are you complaining? You got to come home for lunch. You got to cuddle your children while your husband fixed you a meal. How could that not redeem any bad day you could possibly have?"

My mother and I have talked a lot this past year about how ungrateful we can be about our lives.  Sometimes at work, I feel that all I hear is complaining.  And I'm in a line of work where I get paid vacation, where I took 6 weeks off for maternity leave, where my bosses listen to me when things need to change, where my very job description engenders some sort of respect.  In short, I mean that I'm not picking up feces every day, so where the heck do I get off complaining about it?

Our culture teaches us that external factors control how we feel, and that to do nothing and get paid for it (cough, cough - the Kardashians - cough, cough) is glamorous and desirable. My parents taught me that hard work is its own reward. That every job should be done well, from cleaning toilets to healing disease. That if you have work, you should feel blessed, because you are able to be productive and your life has meaning.  And yet every day, I find myself complaining.  I bet if most of you examine your conversation in general, whether it be texts, phone calls, face-to-face or even Facebook statuses, you will be shocked by the amount of complaining you do.

I'm not a New Year's Resolution-type person, never have been. As a friend of mine said recently, "If I feel that something needs to change, I just change it." Well, something needs to change in my life.  I'm not planning on never complaining again, because goodness knows sometimes just having my husband or mom listen to my day makes everything better again. But I will try to be more grateful, to whine less, and to enjoy more.

Any takers?