Homeschool Mama

 

I bought my first “homeschool mama” shirt the other day.  It arrived today and I laughed at myself that finally, after 9 years of homeschooling, I felt ready to get myself a shirt. I mean, why now? Why 9 years later do I finally feel comfortable in this homeschooling skin? 

Over the past 9 years I have doubted and struggled. Is this the right option? Is this the best option? Will my kids be okay? Are we learning enough? Are they learning at all?  We have done HSAP, co-ops, community groups, dual enrollment, therapies, tutoring, full time public schooling (that was a big deal), and back again. So why do I feel so confident here, in this? Because in all these years, I’ve discovered that they’re okay. They are learning. They are growing. 

My little girl with dyslexia, dysgraphia, and anxiety – she has learned how to write full papers.  My little girl with a language disorder – she is quickly conquering reading. My little boy with boundless energy – he is soaking up information like a sponge and repeating it back to me in striking detail.

We strive and we struggle. Some subjects come easy and we dance through the lessons, some subjects we hike through slowly but deliberately conquering the towering mountain before us.

I have seen post after post on social media the last few weeks, pictures and words detailing the exodus of children back to school. Parents cheering on their brave students as they enter back into their school buildings and breathing a sigh of relief that the difficult work of educating their energetic children rests in the capable hands of their teachers. Posts telling tired mamas to relax, breathe easy, drink some coffee, read a book – and I’ll admit, I have felt keenly the pangs of jealousy. My busy season is just beginning. There is little time now for long coffee breaks, book reading (beyond read-alouds for my kids), crocheting, or writing (a much missed past time).

But even through a little jealousy, I love teaching my kids. I love spending this precious time with them. I love watching my daughter conquer reading with squeals of delight. I love laughing and joking with my oldest while we work our way through Latin conjugations and pre-Algebra. I love when my son makes outrageous math problems for me to solve between his own, even though math is tricky for him. I love passing out play-doh to keep hands busy while I read out loud another book by Beverly Cleary. I love making a snack tray, and I love snuggling on the couch. I love making omelets and oatmeal and reluctantly making ramen.

Don’t get me wrong, there is a lot I could get done if I was only chasing a 2 year old around all day. Or, if I had time to run a side gig (from one of the numerous direct sales companies that I love) that brought us in some extra money. It’d be awesome to be able to clean everything myself, or exercise, or read a book, or crochet something. It’d be so cool if I could keep this house in order all day long and then give the kids 1 or 2 chores to do when they got home.

But that’s not the life I’ve chosen. I’ve chosen homeschool mama, which means I have my own unofficial full time job. It’s a full time job without a monetary paycheck. It pays in emotional satisfaction, sometimes frustration. It pays in my kids’ futures. It pays in joy. It pays in laughter. It pays in high fives, math jokes, Latin jokes, homeschooling jokes. It’s hard. But it’s so good.

I’m a homeschool mama.

Blessings,

Brie

Lessons from the soil part II

 I have a fern a friend gave me two years ago. I know it was two years ago because she gave it to me shortly after (or before? That whole spring is a blur) my toddler was born and I literally did nothing with it for weeks… maybe months.

Eventually I repotted it and decided to try and start taking care of it because miracle of miracles it was still alive. 😂 

For the past two years it has struggled and struggled some more. Mold would grow on the surface and I would scrape it off. Sometimes mix it in. Honestly I had no clue what I was doing. Eventually I asked my friend and she recommended I repot it with completely new soil and rinse off the roots to make sure I didn’t transplant any mold with it. 

Today I gently pulled the root ball out of the old pot. It was a huge tangled mess. I rinsed and tried to gently pull off broken pieces of rotten root ball. Eventually this is what I was left with: 

There are only a couple of roots attached to these 5 growing stems of leaves. I can see at the tips some healthy root growth beginning. 

2 years this fern has limped along, hiding under the contaminated soil rotten roots that were keeping it from thriving. 

How often does this happen to us humans? We have rotten roots hiding under the surface. We need the great Creator, the God of Heaven to reach into our lives and gently pull out the rotten bits and rinse us with clean water and repot us in fresh, uncontaminated soil. But it hurts. It’s a lot of scary to willingly walk into something new and hard and unknown. But God has greater things planned for our lives than just 5 measly stems. He has a whole flourishing plant planned for us, if we’re willing to do the work, and let him do the work in our lives. 

Blessings my friends. 

Brie

Lessons from the soil Part 1

 After 15 years in the same house we moved late last summer across town to a house that provided a little more room for our family. While not the reason we purchased the house, I was drawn to the many flower beds that provided ample opportunity to create and explore. Our old yard was very sunny and I looked forward to new adventures in a part shade yard. 

As I dug into the soil last fall for the first time, anticipating the release that comes from plunging your spade into the rich dark soil, my spade stopped short. I pushed harder. I heard crunching and scratching. What could be hiding under this grass? It looked to me on the surface to be green lawn, a fresh place to dig a flower bed.  But I was met with so much gravel.

A long time ago, this big green lawn was a well manicured oasis for someone. Landscaped completely and beautifully with rock. And although in its day it graced a magazine, it became over grown and someone else came in and laid some sod on top of all the rocks and called it good. 

Today, I was changing around a different bed. I decided to move a couple of hostas to a different location. It looked prime. There was a layer of mulch covering the soil. Again, I thrust my spade into the mulch and it went in less than a quarter of an inch. I scraped back the mulch. More rock. 4 inches of rocks. Large rock, small rock. It was all there hiding just beneath the surface. 

As I scraped away the rock, trying to decide how to proceed with my flower beds, I was again reminded that God always brings the best revelations out of my time in the soil. 

Just like my well manicured lawn and flower beds were hiding so many rocks, people too can look well manicured and put together on the outside but when you dig a little bit, you may find a lot of rocks. 

What may have looked easy might instead hold for you long hours of digging through the hardness of life picking out all the rocks. Underneath all of those rocks there is beautiful fertile soil waiting to welcome the new life it can now receive in abundance. 

Peace and love to you as you patiently dig out the rocks in your own soil. 

Brie

What's New with You?

Summer of 2018 is well underway and the busyness of early summer has slowed down.  It is finally restful.

I started taking classes this summer to earn my degree.  To be honest at this point I have no idea where I'm going with this but I know that moving forward is the right thing.  I started attending Southwestern Assemblies of God University earlier this summer by taking ONE online class.  One.  And I was surprised to find that one is just about all I'm able to do right now.

This fall I'll be finishing up some Gen Eds at our local community college.  Okay, I'll be finishing up ONE Gen Ed.  I will still have 3 others I need to take but one is about all I can handle mentally and financially right now.

The last few months have been transformational for me.  In the spring I began listening to the Going Scared Podcast by Jessica Honneger founder and CEO of Noonday Collection.  If you know me, you know I LOVE Noonday Collection.  From the company's beginnings to it's mission of empowering women around the world and its FANTASTIC eclectic and quality jewelry - I love it.  So naturally, when I heard about the Going Scared Podcast I HAD to listen.

Over and over and over again the resounding message I have heard is to just do it. Do something. Move Forward. Do it Afraid.

It has been YEARS that I have wanted to go back to college and for many of those years I knew I wanted to go back but had no idea as to what my degree would be.  I was held back by not knowing the whole story.  But if there is one thing I have learned from living life (and being told by amazing leaders all around me) - is that I'm not supposed to know the whole story. I'm just supposed to take the first step.

I am learning to give up regrets and to stop living in "should have".  My husband and I often quote to each other one of our favorite lines from C.S. Lewis' Chronicles of Narnia (said in our best Aslan voice - which if you have listened to Focus on the Family Theatre's audio version you know what I'm talking about)

"To know what would have happened, child?" said Aslan. "No. Nobody is ever told that."
"Oh dear," said Lucy.
"But anyone can find out what will happen," said Aslan

So move forward friends.  Go on, find out what will happen.  We're on this journey together.

Peace,

Brie

Beauty all around

Several years ago a friend of mine and I had a garden.  It was a good size, and we loved it.  We would spend hours out there together, listening, talking, just being silent but safe.  It was a form of therapy for both of us.  I was struggling with through infertility and miscarriage, and she her own journey to walk through. 

It was a beautiful garden, and I had a beautiful walkway, beautiful flower beds and I enjoyed them.  I had only one child, and my friend had her two (and later 3) and our kids would play while we talked.  And many days I would go out to the garden alone and just pray.  Mostly I prayed for more children. 

In all those prayers, that were one day answered - I never once realized that when I had those more children I would not be able to continue to maintain a garden well. 

Here we are, my oldest 9, my second child almost 5 and my youngest home for two years - and my garden still waits full of weeds. 

It has been 4 years since our large joined garden.  And this year, I am finally planting a couple of vegetables again.  I planted strawberries and lettuce today, and I pulled 3 dandelion plants. 

That is seriously all I have time for.  I don't even have time for writing this.  Because our social worker comes for our two year post placement in just a few days and if I spend all my time cleaning up the outside, she will find a very messy inside.  It looks as though we have been busy for the past three weekends and sick in between... because that's true. 

I am so thankful for these three amazing kids that God has given me.  And I'm even thankful that I don't have the time for the meticulously maintained garden and flower beds of my past.  Because the friendships have stood the test of time, and the children are growing.  Both are a very beautiful thing. 

...but she out of her poverty...

Some days are really difficult.  Whether you are a parent or not, everyone has difficult days.  It can be brought on by nothing more than a difficult night of sleep, sleeping past your alarm, not eating breakfast, or traffic slowing you down.  Everyone has difficulties in life. 

Sometimes though, there are people that have more difficulties than others.  Whether mental illness like depression, bipolar, or schizophrenia, or a physical illness like chronic back pain, fibromyalgia, cancer treatments or foot pain (psh. lets just say any pain.. because anytime there is pain, there is just difficulty!)  - so  Let's just say that - when people are in pain, life is extra hard! 

What about those suffering from an emotional heartache?  Infertility, miscarriage, death of a loved one, a struggling marriage, concern for your children -

In Luke chapter 21 vs 1-4 we read the story of the widow's offering -

As Jesus looked up, he saw the rich putting their gifts into the temple treasury. ² He also saw a poor widow put in two very small copper coins. ³ “Truly I tell you,” he said, “this poor widow has put in more than all the others. ⁴ All these people gave their gifts out of their wealth; but she out of her poverty put in all she had to live on.”

I read this and thought about how I could give out of my poverty.  I cannot claim to have ever experienced true financial poverty.  Even as a child when my parents were at their poorest, we still had food and shelter, warmth, and clothing - by this worlds standards, I have never experienced financial poverty.  I wondered what it would be like to give out of my poverty. 

And then as the morning progressed it came to be known that one of my kids was having a really hard day. I was doing my best to speak life into this little one - but she really didn't want to hear it.  I told her that even in hard times we can make the choice to have a good day or a bad day.  This day was her choice, regardless of whether or not it went the way she had hoped it would.

And that is when it struck me - what about giving out of our emotional poverty?  When life is really difficult and we show grace to someone who needs it.  Or when we choose to be joyful despite difficult life circumstances.  When we bring peace even though we feel that our world is in turmoil...  Might this be a little like this widow giving out of her poverty. 

When life is going easy, when the money is there, when we got all the sleep we needed, when we woke up on time and our hair was perfect, on the days that we absolutely LOVE LIFE - it is so easy to spread joy and love, and grace - and on those days it is so easy to be full of patience for those around us and to respond softly to harsh words. 

But on the days that our hormones are OUT OF CONTROL, on the days we want to eat our feelings and punch other people in the face (c'mon I can't be the only one right?), on the days we just don't feel like we can summon the energy to play with our kids, or make a decent meal, or focus on our work, - but yet we give our very best in that day... our best might be yelling less than you wanted to and making boxed mac and cheese - but might our best on our worst days be worth more than our best on our best days? 

Just some thoughts tonight. 

I would love to hear what your thoughts on this might be!  Have you ever felt like you had nothing to give, and so you gave the very best you could even when it felt pitiful?

Comment on this blog, or comment on Facebook - I would love to connect with you!

Finding A Connection

I am outside tonight, enjoying the cool temperatures, high humidity and gorgeous Iowa sunset.

I love connectedness.  I love how one person is connected with another; how the sky is connected to the earth, the beauty of the sunset, the importance of the bugs and animals and that all together as one we sing out a beautiful chorus to our great Creator.

The sun has just disappeared behind the blue/purple/pink haze of summer but the sky is still bright.

I have just returned home from leaving my oldest child at summer camp for the first time. I have no doubt she will have a fantastic time.  She is growing into a young woman and is full of confidence and grace - and laughter, so much laughter.

(Okay so the bugs did make me go inside. I know mosquitoes serve a purpose but why does that purpose have to include MY blood?)

My husband and littles have stopped for ice cream on the way home and I have been granted the rare opportunity to sit in quiet and reflect on life.

I don't get to reflect much anymore - I just feel tired alot.

(And now I itch.)

I walked to the post office tonight and watched a plane fly overhead.  I wonder where those people are going?  I wonder who they are going to see?  Are they happy?  Are they sad?  A business trip or a pleasure trip?  What about us?  When we travelled to China to pick up our sweet baby boy, were there people down below wondering about us?  I wish I could tell them how wonderfully our world was about to change.

(Seriously, I just got so many bug bites and I was out there 5 minutes. I hope Amariss uses the bug spray I sent with her.  Soooo glad I packed bug spray!)

I was prompted to write another blog post by a good friend of mine.  She was 12 when I met her... She was a shy girl coming to youth group as a 6th grader and my husband and I were youth sponsors.  I seriously remember the very first day she and her older sister came to youth.  Now she is 24 and is married and is mothering her own little one.  I'm pretty sure when I was 20 I never imagined that we would someday be sitting and having coffee and catching up as friends.  Friends, connected - through life, seasons and motherhood.

Also, where did 12 years go?

(My family will be home soon and I'm anxious to check the camp website and see if there is a picture of my little girl yet.)

I love to remember my connections.  The new neighbors down the street with young children, being from a small town, loving to sing and dance and paint and experience life - I love to see connections everywhere I go.

I wonder if we looked deeper to see how we were all connected, if we might learn to love a little more deeply, to share a little more grace and to experience a lot more joy?