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

Just like that

Not every day can be perfect. There are, in fact, whole weeks that go by that seem to take my patience and sense of well being right along with them. My communing with the mama robin yesterday was a way of reminding myself of the promises I made when we chose to embark on the journey of parenthood and, later, homeschooling. Some weeks those promises—like not to yell, to give space, to be patient, to go with the flow—are easier to remember, and to keep, than others. But the rough days don't last, and neither does the headache that goes with them. I fully expect days when things like lack of sleep and an overheated house will drive everyone in the family over the edge, and a child's need to test boundaries is also to be expected. And when all of those things happen at once it's just time to take a step back and breath for a moment and replenish the well.

There is a bigger picture. This week may have been about butting heads and arguing for the sake of hearing one's own voice, but the bigger picture has always been dominated by love and respect and pure unadulterated joy, and a few rough days can't diminish that. It always comes back.

Just like that.

Room to err

This morning as I sat in my usual chair drinking my usual coffee I heard a most unusual flapping and splashing. Last night we had watched as one of the baby robins left the nest under our deck and tried his wings rather clumsily in the wide outer world and I thought to myself at the time what a good thing it was that he had not fallen in the kiddie pool just outside the window, but I didn't empty the pool, so when I heard the quiet splashing this morning I knew what had happened and the words that escaped my lips as I dashed out the back door are probably not to be repeated in kind company.

Rescuing that precious baby was not as hard as I thought. The pool being close to the wood pile I just reached over for a board, gently pushed it under his struggling feet, and lifted him safely out onto the ground. I left him in the sunshine and watched him from the window, at first shivering, then eventually calling to his parents, who showed up with breakfast. Calvin had watched the rescue from the window, and we both went through the day with a feeling of exuberance over this deed done for babies (our babies because they have lived under our deck, after all).

I didn't bother the baby with the camera at the time of the incident—enough trauma is enough—but he returned to the deck later in the evening. As soon as he'd hopped off this morning I'd emptied the pool, so drowning was no longer a concern, but the parents were now worried about our physical presence and as we rounded up toys from the yard she sat on our feeder hook and chipped at us to let us know she meant about as much business as a mama robin can mean.

Mothering is a tough job. From the moment children are born, be they robins or humans, they are preparing to leave the nest. You feed them and clothe them and try to keep them safe, but your job is to keep strangers at bay while they learn to fly, and fail, and try again; Your job is to bandage the knees, not to stop them from falling while they learn to run or ride a bike. That mother robin knew that. She knew that her job was to trust her baby to learn. It's part of her instinct.

Tonight we took a family walk and stopped by the park. Following the rain that finally relieved our parched grounds the air was cooler and less oppressive, and the sun was just peaking from around the retreating storm clouds. In the park Calvin gained the new skill of sliding down the fire pole without assistance. Watching from the sidelines is hard. Jon was there to help, but from a respectful two steps away, and I could see his arm muscles flex every time Calvin's feet left the structure and swung out into space to grab the pole (and my own arms jumped each time, too). Jon was ready to help if needed, but he was trusting the boy to know his own limitations, to learn the skill on his own. I think he is so much better at stepping back than I am. 

Jon and I have always tried to base our parenting and teaching philosophy on trust. We give Calvin choices and allow him to make decisions, giving him room to celebrate the good ones and learn from the bad ones. But it's not always easy. Assessing physical situations or dangers and providing appropriate support is one thing, but non-physical situations are more difficult to judge. Lately I feel like, when I give him choices, I end up pressuring him toward the one that I think is clearly right, and that is not environment I want to create for him. I need to provide support from one more step back, giving him room to err or to triumph and the space in which to assess things for himself. Like the mother robin I need to trust that learning and growing is entirely natural, and so are mistakes.

Summer reading, and more

Today Calvin signed himself up for the summer reading program at our library. The idea is to get (keep?) kids reading over the summer, so they get prizes each time they meet their own weekly goals and are entered in an end of the summer drawing as well. Even though there is a "read to me" component we've never participated before. I don't go in for goal or reward oriented reading (says the girl with the goal of reading a book a week over the course of the year); reading is a natural part of our day, and Calvin reads plenty without enticement, outside of the pure enjoyment he gains from doing so. But this year Calvin is reading to himself and after reading the brochure he asked me about the program. I explained to him why we'd never participated before and gave him the choice of doing so now, as long as, if he chose to join in, he met his own goals all summer.

He signed up for the big kids program, the "read to myself" program. He filled the form out by himself and chose to set a goal of four completely new books each week, which, as he explained to me almost word for word, "is not very many, but will leave me time to read my old favorites and maybe a "long long chapter book, like the next Oz." I will make him a book log to keep at home, and each week he will fill out the log the library has for him under his name. And maybe I'm mistaken, or maybe it's just the right time, because I can see this being a decent thing. Having to keep the list might get him thinking more about the books and their authors, and about comparing them, too. And since he is a natural reader now, I doubt the introduction of rewards will ruin our natural flow.

And so we were at the library today, and before that this morning was the start of Calvin's two week long summer swim class, which means lessons at nine in the morning, every morning, all week, for two weeks. We're always up well before then, but we're not usually out of the house by the then, or presentable (because I often get up and go running, which is out of the house, but I'm not exactly presentable afterwards). The bright side? Just think of all the things we can accomplish this way. And today was a math day, and a checking on the bacteria we're growing petri dishes day, and a bird watching, reading, and piano day. Pretty much a run-of-the-mill day you could say.

Swan family in our neighborhood! I would have liked better pictures of these guys but it was just before bedtime that they came wandering through so it was dark, and we respectfully kept our distance. I'm hoping we'll see them again, though.

So, next time, stop me before the cliche

The day is as hot as the cat is long...

...and it was a hot, hot day. Temperatures in the low nineties, heat index topping one hundred. That's thanks to ground saturation and the amount of water in the air—it's wet here. I'm loving the heat. The house is open and the breeze, because thankfully it was also a windy day, is blowing right through. With each dry day I gain hope for our new trees, though only time will tell.

Speaking of the passage of time, If you've ever wondered what has become of Calvin, now 26 years later (think: Calvin and Hobbes), I came across a pretty spiffy npr post today that pointed in the direction of that answer...on a blog by the name of Pants Are Overrated. Krulwich at npr wasn't thrilled, but I enjoyed the updates. Calvin marries Susie after all! Although I think naming the little girl Francis instead of Bacon would have been equally as meaningful, and would have kept them miles clear of the whole internet bacon meme, which I can't believe Calvin would have fallen for. Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster maybe, but not bacon.

My own Calvin is four, with five coming on in just over another week. Sometimes I catch myself saying things like "look how big he is" or "I can't believe it's been five years" but I'm not sure I mean those things. They are clichés, things I'm expected to say, things I expect to hear from myself, but I'm pretty sure it feels like it has been five years and I know exactly how those years were spent. I had all the baby clothes up here this weekend, the ones that didn't sell at the garage sale last year, and I could smell the past in them, the sweetness of babyhood and the preciousness of growth, but these did not evoke in me anything more than memory; no nostalgia, no yearning for baby skin, or baby diapers, or baby sneezes, or baby sleepless nights. I don't even miss naps. I have enjoyed every new step and have carefully put away the ones behind me for later reference, but not later tears.

We had a pretty normal day today. He had swim lessons this morning...and jumped into the pool all by himself, something he wouldn't have done even a month ago. Then we went to the library while I sorted books for an hour and he read books to himself the whole time, something he couldn't have done four months ago. On our way out we checked out a book we'd had on hold—The Royal Book of Oz—and he read the title and explained the whole series he's read to the astonished librarian, then read part of the first chapter in the car on the way home. Time, you see, is passing.

We spent the afternoon in the little pool at home (because, as I mentioned, it was HOT), Calvin often with his head entirely under, blowing bubbles, something he wouldn't have done last week. He rode his big bike to the park after dinner and practically flew down the slide.

His feet touch at the bottom now. I don't remember when that happened.

These pictures seem so very boy to me. He looks so very boy to me. Not like a gender thing (I don't go for that) but like an age thing. Boy as opposed to toddler. I'm good with that.