Sunday

Yesterday was our library book sale day. It was the first sale for which I was sole coordinator, not that I didn't have gobs of help. Calvin was bent on helping me, so we left home at 8:30 in the morning and he worked with me until noon, offering bags to shoppers and helping direct those who were lost. In between he would sit and read. His dad picked him up at noon, then they came back at three and helped clean up. We a handful of new books, of which Robin Hood, The Frenzied Prince, Household Stories, and The Nightingale (beautifully illustrated by Eva Le Gallienne), are likely to be our favorites.

But that was yesterday. Today was Legos.

That's quite a collection of people at the train station.

They might be headed to the Natural History Museum.

Or to the game.

Wizards vs. Musketeers?

And cinnamon rolls.

And naps, then Snap Circuits.

Getting back on the horse

Swimming yesterday, a little laundry, some exercising, and lots and lots of work at the library. We have a sale coming up this weekend.

Two journal entries, and handful of math worksheets, lots of Lego play, and lots and lots of reading. We both got some great books for Christmas, after all.

There are still piles of laundry, and we have yet to return to the history train, but between a smattering of unexpected doctor visits and all the prep work for the book sale on Saturday, we're still trying to get back on the normal horse.

Rainy Monday (yesterday)

I may never, in all of my life, recover from the "waking up for work on a Monday" feeling sufficiently enough to deflate the elation of waking up on a Monday and not having to go anywhere. It's been over five years now and I can still say that, and I hope I always can.

That feeling of elation is tripled when the Monday is a rainy one, because it's that kind of Monday that was specifically made for staying at home and being cozy. In fact, we swapped our pajamas for street clothes only long enough to go to the library and check on the sale room and swap some due books for some new books, then back to the pajamas.

I started the crock-pot just before lunch so that the smell would start to warm the house (vegetable soup), did two extra crosswords, and finished my new book. Calvin steadfastly alternated between math at the kitchen table and music at the piano all day. He was so happily dedicated to those spots that he finished two full sections in his math book today, and learned, almost to perfection, four new songs in his new piano book. We also colored prehistoric mammals, read books to the cat, and played mancala, watched the birds play in the soft splatters of rain on the deck.

A day of rest

We had a quiet Sunday. A day as long and busy day as yesterday was calls for a day of rest to follow. No chores, no yard work, no much of anything. Just some quiet reading, an Antarctic craft, and some pretend play in a tent in the sitting room, of course. With Jon home I actually drove over to the Metro Park to run on the paths—it's such a beautiful time of year for it—and on my way I passed our little local cider mill. Open. Must be closer to fall than I thought. So when Calvin asked for afternoon snack, how could we not go down there for fresh, hot donuts and fresh cold cider. Oh heavenly.

Waking up

"It is never too late to wake up from a nightmare" *

This morning I was surfacing from sleep gently, listening to the sounds of the world waking around me, and in those moments of drifting in and out of dreams I found myself smack dab in the middle of a terrible, terrible nightmare: a family vacation, a misstep off a very high dock over very deep water, and I was desperately trying to rescue my son from sinking to the bottom of the ocean. Just writing this brings back the feeling of desperation and helplessness that I tried to shake immediately upon waking. So why on earth would I rehash it here? Because it started me thinking. It's true that lately I've felt like I was drowning—drowning in a sea of things that need to be put away, of chores that are getting away, of things that must be done versus things I want to do, of missteps and frustrating moments. That nightmare? It might just be a wakeup call: something isn't working.

Of course, I've known that something wasn't working for a few weeks now. Be it the heat, the late nights, the age, I've mentioned before that we've all hit a wall as far as congeniality goes. Calvin is wonderful. He's sensitive, he's motivated, he's interested, he's bright, and in the past few weeks he's also started to show himself as strong willed. Now a strong will is a great thing, but without thinking about it my initial reaction was to demand compliance, and that made me grouchy, that made him grouchy, that made all of us grouchy. It was a vicious circle. Then I wrote a week or two ago about trying a more definitive weekly plan as a way of handling this, and honestly it's been going just fine. Peace is returning, but defnitive and authoritarian just isn't the path we wanted to take. It's not even the path we were on just a few months ago. It's hard to tell where we took the wrong turn, and the change in direction happened so gradually I think we didn't even notice it right away, but now it's time to find our way back.

This is a hard thing to write about. It's hard to admit to making mistakes, to being lost, to taking wrong turns, but I've always maintained that I have the right to change my mind, and it's time to do that now. On a recommendation from an unschooling mom I greatly respect I've started reading a new book: "Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves" by Naomi Aldort. I'm only one chapter in and already I can see the difference I want to make, the change I want to be. It won't happen overnight, but I believe we can go from being the authoritarian parents we've become, to being the teachers and partners in learning that we once were and still want to be. I'll be spending the next few days on the first chapter of Aldort's book, moving from "reacting" in situations, to sharing in them, and then on from there. I guess you could call this our newest journey, a journey back to the family we knew we wanted but somehow stepped away from, and I want to share some of that journey here, in case our experience can motivate someone else the way that other moms have motivated me.

*from Raising Our Children, Raising Ourselves, by Naomi Aldort