Our Curriculum Choice.

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Here we are, approaching August. I'm huddled over the sharp clap and drone of our bedroom copy machine all the time now. A few hundred worksheets and quizzes down; just as many to go... There definitely isn't a lot of time to blog anymore, but I'm gathering ideas from reading what others have time to type up.

Sometimes it's encouraging. Sometimes it's just intimidating.
By middle school, it feels like most homeschooling mothers have readjusted their way through a dozen different curriculums, struggling to find exactly the right fit for their child. Of course, one of the major benefits to homeschooling IS that freedom and flexibility there is to change things at will, and to custom-fit aspects of education you normally wouldn't have control over as an after-school parent. But reading about how many different curriculum choices an individual family has cycled through by seventh grade is one of the most disheartening topics for me to read about in online searches relating to homeschool. It makes the chances of us being thrilled with the first curriculum we try look pretty grim.

Since we're only homeschooling for two years, hoping to undo a little bit of sullying and beef up a few preparations for high-school we felt were being neglected where she was, I want these two years to be successful without too much of a waiting period. Its a lot to ask, but I want them to pack a punch.

Finding where we fit inside a "homeschooling philosophy" was challenge number one. I realized this when the first article on preparing to homeschool that I came across, preached to its readers about the importance of doing absolutely nothing related to academics at all for the first six months to a year of homeschooling - even if 'un-schooling' wasn't your chosen philosophy. WOW. Another article that I read warned parents not to buy books -- ANY books, in preparation for year one of learning at home. You'll see that philosophies like this sound more radical than they actually are once you educate yourself on the background behind them, but all the same, they weren't for us. We intended to head in a different direction with our experience.

Now that we're pretty well rooted in where we stand on homeschooling and the philosophies therein, I've gotten a lot of questions, especially in the past few weeks about our curriculum choice. I love that this is happening! For one, I'm excited about our curriculum, and secondly, because I've put a lot of heart and effort into doing this right, It's fun to see that friends and family are getting interested in what we're up to.

Because it doesn't feel like our situation is extremely typical, and a lot of my new readers are homeschooling mothers, I want to clarify that Mary just needed a little "reset" from public school. We have a public (charter) high school in mind for her in the future, and our goal is to prepare her for success in that environment over the next two years.

Originally a part of why we chose to homeschool her over placing her in a more structured private school setting where she would have been influenced by a more positive crowd, was cost. It definitely wasn't the only factor*, but it was a consideration.

*(We still weren't going to have a lot of control over the attitude changes we wanted to see happen, and couldn't guarantee that by high-school she'd be emotionally or academically ready for the high school we wanted to see her prepared for by 9th grade. We also worried that placing her in a more structured, less-tolerant setting would only result in her being reprimanded more often, with stricter penalties, and that by only being held to a higher standard of academic performance so suddenly, her grades would slip further. She was in a delicate place, where we worried about any more discouragement solidifying the personality changes we saw her struggling with, and we wanted to be as involved in the turn-around as was possible.) <--- Wow. NOT as condensed an explanation as I was hoping to fit inside of those parentheses... lengthy digression over.

I was able to find a very highly-rated 7th grade curriculum, which came in a complete package, on sale. It was still expensive though, ringing in at about $440.00 all told. When I say "all told" I mean that it covered each core subject in a single purchase. That doesn't take into consideration the cost of field trips, which will be more expensive if she isn't part of a larger group taking them. (Sometimes she will be; sometimes field trips will just be an outing I take she and her smaller siblings on myself.) It also doesn't take into consideration the cost of setting up her schoolroom, which was safely over a hundred dollars, pinching every penny. Or project supplies for in-class activities, which will add up over time. Then, there are dues for homeschooling organizations and clubs. These, of course, are important because she won't be getting the social and structured physical outlets that come with a traditional public school education, and we'll need to supplement. And then the unholy amount of food #Good Lord, the food!# this child eats being home all the time, when she already put us out a small fortune by needing to eat three or four times a day just after school.

Yesterday my husband asked (for, like, the third time) why I chose not to go with a free k-12 curriculum, which was actually one of the first avenues I explored. A lot of families use the k-12 curriculum and swear by it. The reviews were very harum-scarum, though. Some family said it was the best curriculum they've used in 25 years of homeschooling and others said that it was the worst. Homeschooling was already such a new endeavor to us that I felt like relying on a curriculum that wasn't highly rated across the board was one leap of faith too many.

Besides, homeschooling appealed to me because of what it was: different, self-paced, centered on family. I like that what we're using was designed with those virtues in mind, without deviating too much from the traditional approach to education she's already accustomed to.

I also like that this curriculum came to us complete in all core subjects. There was room to add the mini-subjects I wanted to boost her confidence in (typing, cursive, vocabulary), but the curriculum as it came, would have been more than enough on it's own. We even got a few free gifts that were actually decent additions to our package.

Most of my decisions regarding her homeschool education have centered around the knowledge that if it were up to her, she would have stayed exactly where she was in public school. It was by our choice that she left, not hers. As negatively as it was affecting her actual education (among other important aspects of her life), she was one of the few kids who never wanted to miss a day of school. For that reason, it wasn't as much of a priority for me to abandon the school's methods on everything, as it generally is for families who are just getting out.

For example, I actually wanted her to have a room in the house with a "classroom" ambiance. My social priorities for her were actually less about bubbling her in so that she only ever associated with pre-approved crowds, as they were about just making sure she (as a VERY social being) gets everything out of them that she craves. She's coming from an environment where the vast majority of her day is fun and games, peppered with small bits of interrupted effort. I've seen the standard she's been held to in the past and I plan to ask much more of her than she's used to providing. She's in for enough of a culture shock as it is, so it's important to me that this experience on a whole not be a total drag; that it not ever feel like a punishment.

I chose the curriculum that I did because I feel like it's the best reflection of those ideals. HOPEFULLY, I'm right.

This Is Where Trusting Him Counts.

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“Oh shit.” he says.

“Matthew! Matthew-Matthew-Matthew-Matthew-Matthew!” Spencer calls from the couch, not taking his eyes off the T.V. “This movie is the shit!” he tells me, his mustache pulling up into a smile. “dude, I’ve been looking everywhere for it… I can’t believe it’s on T.V. now. He is gonna freakin love this! This was my favorite movie when I was a kid… MATTHEW!”

Our little boy barrels past me, a blur of blue collared shirt and bare, thundering feet. I hear him plow into the sofa with all four years of his weight, and daddy tell him it’s a scary movie.

This was how Mary and Spencer bonded when she was still small enough to fit in his lap, little enough to kiss on the lips. Today, Mary can watch a horror movie alone in her room without even having to keep a light on down the hall. She loves them. Matthew isn’t as brave, but he’ll tell you that scary movies are his favorite. To he and Mary, scary movies are time spent with dad doing something that’s… we’ll put it this way: technically mom-approved, but not exactly mom-condoned. And really… is there anything more appealing to a kid than that?

They act like it’s a secret, even though it’s not. Spencer whispers to him that it’s a scary movie, flicking his eyebrows up. Matthew sucks in a big, dramatic gasp of air and then falls back giggling. They both turn teasingly to see my reaction, mischievous grins all over their faces. I make a big show of rolling my eyes and pretending that I don’t get their fascination, walking out of the room. The camaraderie between them is precious, even if the activity it’s over isn’t.

This is where I prove that I love him enough to let him contribute, unregulated, to the dysfunction of our kids.

If Spencer weren’t my husband, my four-year-old would never know that movies like this exist -- not while he’s still so small. The God’s Honest Truth is that I don’t care the way that I used to; not because it isn’t important to me or because I’ve given up. But because I’ve learned to kind of embrace the things Spencer chooses to do differently with the kids than I would.

Mary gets into a fight at school?: I spend all afternoon preaching to her about the power of words and smart conflict resolution, he comes home and teaches her how to throw a punch.

Matthew’s afraid of the water?: I finally get him to understand that we won’t take him past the shallow end until he’s ready; Spencer throws him screaming off the diving board into eight feet of subriguous terror.

We’ve learned to give and take where we aren’t always happy about it. At first, it was through sheer obligation that I threw him a bone once in a while. You’ve got to pick your battles, after all. Eventually, though, I learned to credit him for giving their upbringing a little bit of dimension. In a way, we kind of rounded each other out. You get better about seeing the good intention in their offbeat ideas, about making peace with where you (have to, sometimes) let them win. And more often than you would think, they surprise you.

I tell myself that I’m doing my kids a favor by forgoing a little bit of the control to their dad; it’s important that they see me trusting him. But obviously, too much of this is trial and error for anyone to really know. It’s a leap of faith, parenting in a partnership, so you just do what you can without letting it come too far between anyone in the process.

We like to believe that they’ll come out of this with a well-rounded sense of who they are when all is said and done, unsheltered by too much of the same ideals their whole life. We know in our hearts that the kids are better off because they have two parents who don’t always see things from exactly the same perspective, and have survived to tell the tale. They have parents who cover all bases of their upbringing; who consider everything - including one another. At the end of the day, you have to give each other credit for the part of that you couldn’t accomplish on your own.

Lord knows it isn’t always easy, but in letting their relationship go where I would never have taken it myself, I’m giving it the opportunity to be theirs. Not just an extension of my own.

　

You hear about the indispensability of having trust in a marriage ad nauseam before you ever make the official promise. To me, this is where trust has always counted the most. It’s never been about the assuredness I feel when a cute waitress laughs too long at his joke, or how long he stays out with friends at the bar. Those are the things that in the younger era of boyfriends I would have prided myself in letting go where they may, calling that trust.

Measured against the upbringing of my Matthew, of my Scarlett - nothing else is even big enough to exist.

The other night, feeling my little boy’s heart race on the buzz of trepidation from clear across a darkened room… watching those innocent, cerulean eyes I love so incurably, cling to an experience with his dad he won’t forget for a week of bedtimes to come, I trusted my husband. I trust him everyday with more than my heart, more than my future - I trust him with the lives of my children. I trust him not to screw them up, like he trusts me. (Except more, because I’m a borderline psychopath over them.)

When I come back in to check on them, Matthew flashes me a quick grin from his place on the couch, next to his dad. A look at me grin. I pass it onto Spencer and when we meet eyes, he wraps our little boy in a knowing hug. He says thanks.

It’s because of me that Matthew knows how to find each continent on a globe and it’s because Spencer listened to me that Matthew doesn’t repeat bad words anymore. But it’s because Spencer didn’t listen to me that that same little boy knows how to swim in eight feet of water now. That beautiful little boy under his shoulder embodies everything that is great about us as a team. This is why I love my husband when I look at my son.

It’s a goliath leap of faith, parenting in a partnership. It’s the kind of thing that takes loving someone for all that they are to a whole new level. I’m so glad I took it with the man that I did.

Bored.

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Scarlett’s potty training, so our days basically revolve on a fifteen minute loop around reading books to her, cross-legged at the base of a toilet. Normally, these are the kind of excuses to sit still for a second that I bask in great appreciation of. It’s weird, but I kind of miss the feeling of needing a break.

To be honest, there isn’t a whole lot happening around here lately. To be completely honest, it’s kind of boring.

Lying in the grass with Scarlett nearby, watching squirrels spiral up branches and cats step across my legs, the mornings feel hourless. I talk to Matthew like he’s real company when I’m pushing him on the tree swing in the front yard. (To me, he is.) He asks me questions about the world and corrects me when I answer them. Mary calls him annoying and I jump to his defense even though he doesn't care. I never get tired of hearing what he has to say. He helps me to rescue the kitten from our one, thriving rosebush a few lazy seconds after she sneaks outside. It reminds us to water the strawberries, the hibiscus, the palm tree looking plant thing on our patio, and the wilting flowers. Everything is wet, including us, and we dry off in the sun. Another excuse to lay in the grass and be together, alone. Just the four of us.

It’s relaxing, and the time I’ve had with the kids has been wonderful. It’s nice knowing what to expect everyday when the most ambitious thing that you do outside of the air conditioned house is grill hot dogs by the pool. But I’m ready for life to pick back up again. I’m ready for things to move at a quicker pace.

It’s been fun, but I really haven’t been a huge fan of our summertime routine this year. Knowing that fall is going to be a little weird and new for all of us and that there’ll be a lot of pressure on me to keep stuff around here running very smoothly despite that, I’ve been forcing myself and the kids to take it easy. I let Mary sleep in more than I usually do… The baby, learning her way around a potty seat, spends most of her time happily naked anyway… And because Mary’s usually sleeping, Scarlett’s always naked, and the sun is plotting to crush us all with the sheer force of her deadly heat this year, Matthew hasn’t been on a whole lot of adventures outside of the yard.

They’re all happy. Mary has all of her social media back and a new laptop to explore over strawberry pop tarts in the semi-solitude of her new schoolroom. Matthew’s in and out of the house all day long swinging foam swords and zombie slaying with his friends as they bounce resoundingly back and forth between our house and theirs, asking for more juice. And Scarlett’s just happy to be alive, no matter what we’re doing. Especially, since she gets to be naked.

It’s hard on me to be stuck at home, though, without anything staggeringly important to vie for my time over the kids. I’m trying to live it up - this time I have to kick back, but when I keep stagnant for too long, it drains me. I wind up needing to take short naps with the baby halfway through the day, where once I couldn’t spare 15 seconds to stop and pet the cat.

I don’t know if it’s like this for everybody, but my sanity depends on how active I keep myself. The more I move or do, the more I want to do; The more I don’t, the more it begins to feel like I’m not sure I even can anymore. Powering through the novice stages of making myself a runner back in May gifted me with this superhuman sense of capability. Not accomplishment, (because I never really powered through the novice stages of sucking) but capability. If I could actually get off of my ass and do this, how many other things could I do that I’ve yet to discover? It didn’t matter to me that at my very best I couldn’t make it three miles. I was still there. I was still going after it. My children were watching me set my mind to something healthy, go for it, and come back around when the effort was over, satiatingly drained of everything in me.

It felt good.

I’m not even a live outside of your comfort zone kind of girl - I don’t trust roller coasters as far as I could punt one and I still hold my nose when I jump off of a diving board because I believe with all of my heart that no amount of looking sexy is worth letting water punch you in the brain. I’m a big advocate, however, of parents doing things for themselves so that their children can see. I don’t care if it’s fishing on Sundays or tracking Sasquatch: do shit that makes you feel alive. Go after the life that makes you happy. Rainbows and unicorns, yada, yada, yada…

It’s always a challenge to find the time, but even if it’s just sketching on the back steps while my kids raid the lawn of undiscovered insects or trying to re-teach myself Spanish by introducing it to them - I try to live by the example that as long as there’s a beat in our hearts, we are never finished becoming ourselves. There’s always a new direction to explore, some small new way to reinvent yourself, some part of you to expand on. All that matters is that you never stop moving.

After the furor of sixth grade, I needed a period of quiet in my life as a parent. I needed some time to just be stationary with all my kids. I needed to regroup.

　

Yesterday her state testing results came in and with it, a list of things in the areas of math and language arts that she could improve upon. For the past few weeks, in the midst of all this indoor downtime the heat wave’s allowed us, I’ve been brushing up on the ‘quantitative analysis’ and ‘algebraic reasoning’ they call this stuff. It’s weird how much I love even the most intimidating parts of teaching seventh grade. I mean, I’m not dipping into this with kindergarten concepts and working my way in -- this is hurling off the diving board. This is teaching stuff from a year in math I remember almost nothing from myself - except for maybe that one lecture the teacher gave us on instant gratification and how it related to her weakness for Oreo cookies… But I’m pretty sure that was more about safe sex than math.

In any case, relearning this stuff for her? It’s exciting for me. And when converting percentages into fractions becomes exciting to you… It’s probably time to start doing a little something more with your days than reading A Sick Day For Amos on the bathroom floor and “socializing” your kid’s pet mouse for entertainment. Good timing too, because today her entire curriculum is due to arrive in the mail.

Look! It even comes with fidget-friendly, stress-reducing Thinking Putty and eco-friendly gourmet scented pencils. Wouldn’t you be excited!?

　

　

The Start of Something New.

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It isn’t spectacular yet, but I keep peeking in there whenever I pass. It’s turning out to be a really neat, little space of blue and white with pops of green. The school room.

I’ve worked hard to pull this room together. It took three days to clear it out of all the forgotten junk, caked on rust and collected cobwebs before I could even get started; another week of really scrubbing, sanding, and spraying before I could dig into the daunting process of making it look new.

I painted the old, awful, dark wood paneling (think Trailer Chic, sans the Chic) that used to be in there a very bright white, so that the blue above it looked newer. We laid a big area rug down over the ugly, asbestos tiling and hung some long curtain panels over the small, rectangle, basement widow to make it look bigger. Spencer put some kind of special light fixture in there that will blind a person for starting directly at it, in order to make up for the fact that it won’t get any natural sun. The only thing we kept in the room at all was the desk and filing cabinet, which I plan to paint in order to cover where it’s metal is rusting at the bottom. Then we framed a giant map with flags of every country, taped up a few squares of cork board on either side of the nook above the desk, plugged in her laptop, set a little basket above the filing cabinet, and hung a slick, green clock from target on one wall and an oversized dry erase board from Staples on another. Matthew has a little, white rocking chair in the corner with his name on the back where he can sit and hang out with us if and when he wants. It isn’t done. But it is awesome so far.

Between the laptop that was among the presents she got for her birthday and the curriculum, plus a few books, we spent about a thousand dollars this week. I feel like we just caught some air, making this little dream of ours a reality. And soon, we’ll be able to lay it all out into a perfectly packaged schedule. I am going out of my mind with enough enthusiasm to make up for the fact that Mary is still… well, lukewarm on the idea of things getting serious.

I want her getting used to the room (and making sure that the laptop stays safe) so - even though she’s allowed to use it whenever she wants for whatever she wants - the computer has to stay on the schoolroom desk. I like that we have the option of bringing it upstairs if we need more space to work and want to have it handy, but I don’t want it having to be lugged from under her bed every morning. I want this room to be fun and inviting, but primarily functional. I want it being used everyday. This is where the magic will happen.

I’m so pumped about the room being nearly finished and almost having the actual books in our hands that I’m forgetting about the fact that I’m still so nervous.

It feels like so many people who go into this and have wonderful things to say about their journey are working with kids who just never fight them on anything, kids who always share in their parent’s enthusiasm. It’s like home schooling is the vaccine for MSPD (Middle School Personality Disorder, look it up). These incredible kids with incredible, mastermind parents are somehow all about doing chores “without grumbling” just because mom put a Philippeans 2:14 quote at the top of their magnetic work-chart. I swoon at the thought.

I love Mary, I love her dearly. But, bless her heart, I don’t know if she will ever fit that mold. I don’t know if it’s that she’s just been conditioned to react to everything so critically because it’s the way that her peers do or if it’s the nature of who she is… But the child complains incessantly about even the things she helps to decide on. Even about the nice things that people try to do for her. She once complained about the possibility of going to Disney World - seriously. She can enjoy things, just not without finding fourteen reasons to complain about it first. And since home schooling pretty much centers around the premise of me telling her what to do, I wonder how all of this is going to pan out. 


It wasn’t always this way. In fact, a big reason for my wanting to home school her in the first place was that she’s always had a much better attitude at home than she has had at school. She’d come home from school bubbly as a butterfly and pleasant as could be, only for us to find out that she did something outrageously insubordinate that day.

But as this whole thing takes shape around her this summer, it’s affected the way she behaves at home. I don’t want to accuse her of pulling those old, familiar tricks on me now instead of her teachers, just because she has no one else to pull them on. But… well…

I wonder what a difference the change in atmosphere really has the power to make. I wonder if this will be enough. I wonder if this will even have a chance to work when it depends so much on her cooperation.

On the one hand I think: this is exactly why doing this will be good for her. She needs to be beat over the head with positivity consistently worked with on this. This needs to be woven into her daily education: ethics, manners, etiquette, graciousness. The give and take of a teacher/student relationship will be healthy for us. This is the change we need.

Then I think: I don’t know. What if she fights me on it? What if she doesn’t take it seriously? What are my options for handling it? What then, if this whole thing turns out to be one big power struggle at the cost of her education?

We’ve been making little strides already, which is why I don’t mind bringing it up. But sometimes it feels like everything I say to her is met with an adversarial attitude. The beginning of summer was when it was at it’s worst.


I hate writing about the things she does that are hard for me to figure out because I don’t want her reading this someday and thinking that I resent her or anything crazy. She’s a kid, going through stages that all kids go through eventually by some degree or another. She’s staking her independence by separating her opinion from everyone else’s, trying to exercise her right to have a voice and all that jargon. I stood in her shoes once when I was young. And I’m just at the other end of the spectrum now, taking a stab at the parenting part with a kid from the next generation who’s more than willing to come at me full force with the reluctance to listen. Such is life.

(I’m exaggerating a little. She listens; She just also groans. And gripes. And rolls her eyes. And huffs and puffs. And stomps. And slams things. And laughs at me in exasperation as if it’s the village fucking idiot she’s dealing with. And more recently has started trying to get away with snapping things like: “Oh, JESUS!” when I say something she really disagrees with.)

I wasn’t at that stage of life when I was 12, but I remember when I was. I can still see, looking back, how frustrating it was for my mom. Of course, her attitude isn’t always sour. In fact, most of the time she’s a sweetheart. And you have to keep in mind that 12 seconds after she throws a MASSIVE fit over having to put her cereal bowl in the sink, she might give you a hug or tell you that you look nice that day. I worry because the immediate drive to fight us on every little thing is already something we butt heads over on a daily loop. It’s going to be a much bigger issue though, if it interferes with home schooling this often.

One great thing about spending so much time with her is that I’ve picked up on a few tricks of the trade. I can’t just stop asking her to do things. But I’m careful not to lay blame if I’m confronting her with something. Or show that I feel one way or another about anything I’d like her opinion about, because she’ll automatically take the opposite stance. I think it’s a subconscious fight for independence or something. Maybe some kind of settling of scores for all the times I’ve made her clean her room. I don’t know. I’m not an expert on the inner workings of the frightening Tweenage Mind, I just know that she’s more pleasant to deal with when I’m not putting an opinion out there for her to immediately puke on. Because she will.


Eventually, as June unfolded into July, it started to kind of turn around.

One day I said something about a boy her age being kind of cute and she actually agreed with me. It felt so completely unnatural I was like, WAIT. WHAT JUST HAPPENED? Another day, she offered to help with something and didn’t complain even when I had to show her a cleaner way of getting it done. Just yesterday I found that she’s been stuffing her freshly washed clothes right back into her dirty hamper to get out of having to fold them and put them away; clothes from winter have been just constantly recycled through the wash over and over again - and when I calmly confronted her about it, she admitted to doing it with what actually looked like a little bit of remorse. Everyday, there are signs of improvement on my end and hers. I’ve started to correct her grammar lately and volunteer information about things she wonders out loud - and to my great surprise, she’s always responded positively.

She still brings up home schooling like the word itself is poison in her mouth. But I know when she really doesn’t like something and when she’s just taking advantage of on open opportunity to complain. This opportunity is golden because so many people are eager to hear where she stands on the upcoming change.

I can tell that she’s majorly coming around because she’s been asking a lot of questions without the nasty tone in her voice lately, answering questions I have for her about it without any sign of resentment and even telling me that the room looks nice and certain group activities sound like they could be fun. (She’s interested in cheerleading and learning to ice skate.) (Horseback riding lessons, which I offered, made her pretend to throw up on her shoes. Continuing clarinet in the home school choir? That put her on suicide watch. Baby steps, people. Baby steps.)

They are just baby steps, but maybe they’re a sign that things are headed in a good direction. Maybe I’m learning more about my daughter. Maybe we’re both growing a little. Or maybe we’ve just had a few good days. Either way, I will take it with a smile. A big, nerdy smile; enthusiastic enough for the both of us.

Small Swimmer.

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Scarlett’s getting thin again. Bathing suit season really throws it out there, too, the way that it did the year before. She’s healthy now, which lets me know that she’ll just always be smaller than other kids, but seeing her in a bathing suit this year doesn’t feel much different than seeing her in one last year did, just days before her Failure to Thrive was diagnosed in the sterile, frightening walls of a children’s hospital that cut summer short for all of us. She’s a year taller, a year chubbier, and a year more physically able, but as the layers of Osh’Gosh peel away in the heavy heat of summer, worry has made it’s way back to the pit of my stomach.

This year, she can step into the suit on her own. She holds onto my shoulder with one hand and dips her toes into the green, flower print Lycra stretched open between my hands. I pull it up easily even though she’s outgrowing the length and rest the straps over the bony rounds of her very small shoulders. The smallness of her shoulder have bothered me all of her life, save for when she was pumped of formula on a twelve hour automatic feed, and began to finally pudge out a little, in a way that she couldn’t manage to on her own. When that happened, her shoulder fat was one of the first things I celebrated; it felt almost like a victory, a beautiful sign of health. I thought of how many times I’ve cursed my own chubbiness there and I swore I’d never think badly on it again. I swore that when I saw that fat swelling at the top of my arms in a summertime reflection, walking past the mirror in my room, it would make me think of her, and I’d be happy for our combined health. I want her to learn never to be anything less than grateful for the shape her body takes when it is healthy. Ever since, I have. But as she walked away from me in her bathing suit this year, taking small, giddy steps toward her father in the pool, the smile I had on for her disappeared behind her back. I know that she’s healthy, but all I felt was worry.

Writing this down, it feels like a lot of dwelling for dramatic effect. But until recently, I couldn’t even bring myself to look at pictures of her from last year that show any real amount of skin, or her face. They literally, without embellishing at all, make me cringe. Some of them still clutch me to tears. She was so emaciated, she was so tired. Until the hospital intervened, she couldn’t manage the energy it took to laugh. So she just always wore a look of nonplus. It sobered me then, and it kills me now.

It was different before -- she was breastfeeding, so there was guesswork involved in deciphering how many calories she was actually ingesting from day to day. She has her picky days now (most unsettling is that she’ll refuse to eat if she’s even remotely unhappy, which always puts me into kind of a panic) but when she’s willing to show it off, she has an appetite that never ceases to make us proud. She sometimes has to kind of be force-fed the first bite of a new texture, but once she realizes that food doesn’t taste like poison just because it’s new, she clears her plate. She insists on feeding herself independently, picking from everyone else’s plate, and giving any random object she finds on the floor a taste - just to make sure it isn’t, by any chance, a piece of candy. She can still eat four servings of breakfast, easy. Fruit to her is better than ice cream. She loves fresh vegetables, discovering new tastes, and anything spicy. (She’ll even ask for Tabasco sauce! Crazy kid.) So it’s not like it was last year, we know that her being small now is just because of the build she has.

But I’m her mom, so as she makes her way into the water’s edge for the first time this season, I worry on.

In an instant, I’m lifted. Watching her take hold of this experience with no lack of energy, nothing to hold back her thrill or her volume, I’m reminded that it’s not like last year. This is a child radiating with health and happiness. This is a child who shines.

Last year in the water Scarlett laid limp in my arms the whole time, void of any reaction. It was rare for her to even lift her head from under the safe umbrella of my cheek over her light tufts of hair. She never flinched at the biting temperature change, she never tightened her grip as we lowered in, she never reached out to dip her hand in the intoxicating blue. And if we did it for her, she made no expression. She was too tired to be impressed. Too lethargic to have an opinion.

A year later, with screams of hysterical joy at the top of her voice, she gave herself into the experience, splashing around like a madwoman in every direction. She throws herself back and laughs from the deepest part of her belly when the cold water swallows her hair and licks at her cheeks. I hold her tightly at first, loving the way I can see all of her teeth when she laughs with a mouth wide open. Then I loosen my hold on her as she show me that she has no fear of the water getting into her mouth or her eyes - in fact, the girl loves it. She throws herself headfirst into the spangles of sun dancing on the surface, purposely drinking it in and then spitting it out. She dips her face halfway into it and makes bubbles with motorboat noises at her sister, who does it back, and then they laugh.

Scarlett’s second time in the pool, Spencer made the mistake of setting her on the concrete step to play for a second while he turned to watch Mary jump off of the diving board -- when with an almost soundless splash! Scarlett throws herself belly first off of the step and into three feet of shallow water that isn’t so shallow to a person so small. It takes a good three or four seconds for her head to reach air and she comes up with a gasping smile and wide, exhilarated eyes. She must have loved every second of almost drowning because her favorite thing to do now is throw herself in without even bracing for impact. She gets such a kick out of being lifted onto the edge of the pool where she can launch herself into the water again with someone there to catch her just under the surface. She is so sure of herself, she doesn’t even close her eyes.

If anything, she’s too reckless. If Matthew were this uninhibited, it would terrify me. But I need to see her living like nothing can stop her. I am flying right now, laughing out loud with my wet and wild daughter.

Anytime I hold her in the water now, she wrestles to get out of my hands, to be let go four or five feet deep. I’ve even done it a few times, letting her sink for a second, just to show her that she can’t float on her own yet. But her resolve is strong. She wants no part of being propped within a floatation device and when she’s “swimming”, arms nimbly manipulating the water in front of her and then out to the side… legs kicking up a fit of bubbles in the back… she needs to feel like you’re barely holding on. Or she will wrestle you away.

The girl wants to swim - without any mother’s fear to hold her back. I love that about her. May you never lose that, little swimmer. May you always be driven to dive in without even closing your eyes.

Sibling Rivalry and the Lessons Within.

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Scarlett is barely twenty-one months old. And already, Matthew can be heard at least a few times a week fuming, “You’re not the boss of me, SCARLETT!” when she tries, unassumingly, to mimic something I’ve just finished saying to him.

Ah, sibling rivalry. We have arrived.

Of course the pocket-sized misunderstandings that happen between the younger two is pillow-fighting compared to the full-scale warfare that’s been going on between Matthew and Mary since the two were of an age where they could communicate. They get along better than anyone could have thought possible with such an age difference between them -- they build forts together and play school; Matthew takes up for her and she takes time to show him things she knows he'll enjoy; they spend a lot of time at the same house up the street where there are siblings close in age to each of them - Mary doesn’t even mind helping Matthew to clean up his room sometimes so that he can walk with her to their house; Matthew learned to look forward to Fridays during the school year because Mary would usually invite him into her room for little ‘sleep-overs’ which Matthew always loved because her room has a T.V. But they fight just as often.

Fists pound on the outside of a locked door. Threats are screamed from one room to the next. Matthew comes thundering through the hall, either laughing wildly at the insanity he’s driving her to or running to me in tears over something unfair that she did. Mary rattles off a thousand things he did to provoke her, struggling to be heard over his exhausted, frustrated wailing. She mimics him in a crybaby voice and it’s all he can do not to hit her right in front of me.

I’ve worked with children all of my life, this is nothing compared to what some families deal with - and in the end, because they do a lot of things separately anyway, all is usually forgiven and forgotten about by the time their designated separation period is over. They apologize willingly, often without having to even be told and generally, once it’s out of their system for the day, they get along really well. All things considered I think we keep it pretty well managed.

We work hard to strike a balance between refereeing (especially when it comes to name-calling, which is just not allowed) and letting them learn to sort through issues on their own. This means that I spend a lot of time just listening in, waiting to see if, when and how I’ll be needed. Sibling rivalry is exhausting for everyone involved and because of the nature of what it is, there has been a time or two or twelve it’s gone too far, but it’s one of those necessary evils in the life of a family. I like to think that they’ll learn to handle it all with more and more grace over time with experience, so that in the coming years when they’re confronted with adversity outside of the comfort and safety of family, they’ll have a strong foundation in self-control, consideration for others, and overall conflict resolution from which to draw. At least, that’s the hope.

If you started reading this hoping to find some sort of cure-all solution for bickering, you’re in the wrong place.

But, I’ve noticed recently that there may be another silver lining to all of this thunder and lightening. I realize that I’ve actually learned a lot about my children through the way that they argue with one another. Things that have helped me to become a better, more self-aware parent.

The other day Mary was invited to sleep over at a friend’s house. When she found out what would be for dinner, she made the most disgusted face that she could manage, turned away over-dramatically and said, “Ugh, disgusting! I hate meatballs.” Then she whined very loudly, “What are we having? Can I just eat at home? Or are we having (she twists her face up, disgustedly again) leftovers again?” It’s rude on so many levels and I’m embarrassed even though her friend’s mom laughs it off good-naturedly. When we meet back at home for her to grab her overnight clothes, I pull her aside and start to lecture. Even if she isn’t in the mood to act remorseful, I fully expect her to know what I’m upset about, but she genuinely doesn’t. She isn’t being defensive… she’s really having a hard time pinning what it was she did that was rude.

Suddenly I realize that there’s a good possibility guest-etiquette has really just never been fully laid out for her before. Matthew just started going to friends’ houses without me staying with him the entire time. And the first dozen or so times, I reminded him from our front step all the way to theirs about manners and how to be a polite and gracious guest - especially to his friends’ parents. Each time the visit was over, I’d ask him to tell me about opportunities he had to use his manners and we’d talk about it. (He slipped up all the time by the way; manners are definitely not the easiest thing in the world to teach an impulsive child!) Maybe, before I came along, no one really did that for her and I certainly am not usually around during the many meals she’s had away from home now, so I’d really have no way of knowing that her manners in this area have ever needed to be addressed.

She wasn’t trying to insult the mom’s cooking, she said; meatballs are just a food she doesn’t prefer. It was hard for her to understand, which reminded me of something I’m always telling her to keep in mind with her brother when they get into a fight: “He’s still learning,” I always say. He doesn’t always understand why the impulses he has are wrong. So if they are wrong, it’s our job to explain to him why we didn’t like what he did and how it made us feel. If instead, we automatically assume he has horrible, irrational intentions, we create a problem where we could have found a solution.

　

Taking that principle out of it’s original context helped to me to see Mary’s point-of-view in a new light. Spencer and I are both admittedly bad about forgetting sometimes that Matthew is only four. It helps to remember sometimes that the same theory can be applied to older children too. Especially when they’re at an age where we tend to think they’re pretty much done learning the basics.

　

Constantly being on damage-control between my children has taught me to see things from different points of view. It’s conditioned me to see each child outside of their usual syntax in order to help them find compromises that reach across the age barriers between them. I try hard not come across as though I’m taking one child’s “side” over another in an argument. And in doing so, I’ve learned to dig deeper for feelings I cam empathize with, in order to reach both parties in the talk we have afterward. Because conflict resolution is so heavily dependant on considering the age of the children involved, I’ve learned to be more conscientious of those age barriers in my own dealings with them. I’ve learned a lot about how they stomach stress and I’ve become more in-tuned to where their sensitivities are.

　

Another good example was Scarlett’s habit of hitting a few months ago, which we were fortunately able to nip in the bud with an effectiveness we were never able to reach with her older brother.

Scarlett is a very laid back, happy toddler. But when she gets stressed, she goes berserk. Even as a baby, she’d grab at your clothing and yank while she cried, like she was trying to rip something. It’s instinctual for her to let out aggression physically and that worried me when she became a toddler and was willing and able now to not only hurt others, but even sometimes herself. (Sometimes she’ll even pull at her face and let out a scream until she goes red. It’s very unsettling.)

So to counter this, instead of taking a stern ‘that will not be tolerated’ approach, my foremost aim was simply to calm her. If she hits, I say: Oh, we give nice touches to Matthew/Mommy/the cat, etc. I never tell her no or even hint to her that I’m upset. I don’t know if this same approach would have worked as well with Matthew but I’d have loved to at least given it a try because it has been a godsend in it’s effectiveness with her. Immediately, she’d calm down and copy the nice touch we demonstrated on her and then want to be held. After a few weeks of this, we noticed that immediately after she’d hit someone - before anyone even had a chance to step in and respond to the behavior - she’d automatically give them a nice touch to make up for it. It became second-nature. She still hit, but it was a major, major step in the right direction. Eventually, she got the idea and now hitting is not the first reaction she has to not getting her way. Soon, she’ll be able to communicate her feelings with words and that’ll be the next step.

If she’s extremely worked up because… maybe our schedule is a mess that day or she hasn’t eaten well, I put every effort into calming her instead of rushing to correcting the behavior of throwing things or hitting that’s resulted from her being out of whack. I hold her and sing to her and even dim the lights - anything to slow her heartbeat and make her feel safe. Again, it’s made all the difference. I used to feel very strongly that coddling a child after they acted out aggressively would spoil them into thinking that hitting would be rewarded. But at this age, where sophisticated concepts like self-control can’t be explained to them yet, all I can say is that this technique has gotten us the desired result (short and long term) where everything else we tried at that age with our first child, was a crash and burn. Sometimes it takes a lot of patience, but the results are astonishing. It goes to show what stress can bring out in the best of us at any age.

So, taking this idea, I’ve started applying it to Matthew when I can tell he’s acting out because emotionally, he’s just reached the end of his rope. His rope being what he can tolerate with a level head and good judgment. And when does this usually occur? When Mary is driving him out of his ever-lovin’ mind. (Half the time, she isn’t actually treating him unfairly - he just perceives it that way. In either case, the stress caused is the same.) It’s easy to want to put my foot down when he’s fighting over something ridiculous with her and say: Matthew, that’s enough! Mary has her door locked because she doesn’t want you interrupting her phone conversation. You cannot go in there to play on her keyboard. Find something else to do or you can cry about it in the calm-down corner! On the one hand, sure - he’s old enough to understand that this is not an unreasonable request.

But few of us have the capacity for self-control to act completely ourselves under a great deal of stress. Even as adult we do things we shouldn’t. Think of running really late to something important: we cuss, we snap at people totally unconnected to our issue, we slam things. Even totally rational things that get in our way make us want to explode.

With that in mind, the idea of a reasonable request not registering with a four-year-old who’s caught up in his own highly stressful situation is not exactly unorthodox. I could put him in time-out, adding to his feelings of injustice when he’s already going out of his mind.

-- Or I can pick him up, hear him out, offer him a glass of milk while we talk and then try to reason with him once he’s gotten all of that anger off of his chest. This way, I’m not struggling to be heard over a wedge of irrational hostility and defensiveness. Instead of hitting me and calling me stupid because the rage is more than he can handle - and then me having to pile on more consequences, I’m having a conversation with my son. He’s contributing to the exchange of ideas because he’s thankful to be heard. He doesn’t get his way, but by the end of our talk, he doesn’t mind anymore. It’s a win/win. Long term, it’s helped him to understand that he actually can come to me when he wants to “tattle” on his sister because he knows that I’ll listen. And I will, because it’s more pleasant in every way for every one of us than forcing him into submission with a bunch of hostility that winds up with all three of us feeling agitated. When he can’t get his way with his sister, knowing that he can come to me and vent becomes more appealing to him than retaliating, which does end in a consequence.

I’m not any more tolerant than I used to be of his unacceptable behavior, I just have more control over the situation because I’ve found an easier way to reach him. Like with Scarlett. Like with Mary.

I read once in a book about marriage that sometimes our perception of the people we’re really close to get stuck in this place of negativity. We get so familiar with their faults and anticipate their irritating habits so much that we stop hearing what they have to actually say, focused as we are on this just being one more example of them doing that thing that gets under our skin. It said that when you find this happening inside of your marriage, that you should try imagining your spouse as a baby. Picturing them in such a vulnerable and innocent state supposedly makes it easier for us to give validation to the way that they feel, instead of immediately jumping to the easy conclusion that they’re just being ridiculous and stubborn. I guess this is kind of the same. A way to look at the kids with a pair of fresh eyes and an open mind.