Nine Years

A couple of years ago, I told you all about the drama and craziness of my first birth experience. My twins made me a mom, nine years ago today.

In the span of mere seconds, I can be both terrified by how quickly the years seem to pass me by, and overwhelmed by how distant nine years ago seems right now.

I remember I once said that if I believed in a creator, I would say it must have given me twins on its first attempt because it knew I'd never do this again. I really thought that was it for me. I was 19 and I figured I'd never want to have another baby. That was pretty terrifying since I hadn't seen or heard from their dad in months and it seemed like it would be pretty difficult to find a partner who was okay with never having his own kids. Somehow, in a wide variety of ways, my life changed a lot over the course of the next few years (and then again over the few years after that), and I had two more.

In addition to the fear of never finding a guy who didn't want me to have more babies, I knew I had to be picky about the people I allowed in our lives. When I brought them home, I nearly immediately broke up with my boyfriend. He was a guy I met several years before and had been friends with for all of that time. He was an amazing person and an amazing boyfriend... except that his mom didn't like me and definitely didn't like the idea of "us"... and the babies really sealed the deal. I just knew I couldn't deal with his family and their judgement in my life anymore. So, having destroyed my relationship with someone I once thought was the perfect guy, I figured I'd be single forever.

Then, I married their dad. That was a mistake and a mess that I just kept having to apologize for while I pretended to be happy. I don't particularly want to talk about it in greater detail, but you can read about the official end of it (after two years of bitter and painful divorce proceedings) here. Maybe someday I'll put it in a memoir. Like many people fresh out of a situation like that, I was pretty sure I was unlovable and I pretty much hated myself. Still, long-story-short, I wound up stumbling rather gracelessly, and with a lot of baggage, into the prefect relationship. We've been together for four and a half years.

In nine years, the twins and I have lived in five different states. I've owned houses and rented apartments. We've lived in our own place, and military housing, and spare rooms with family and friends. We've been through a lot. At times, I thought our lives would be a series of "we'll figure it out"s. Somehow, we landed in the suburbs in the state that was always my first choice for "when I grow up" collages, with a mortgage on a house we've lived in for over three years. Not bad.

When the twins were born, I had resigned myself to being working-poor for probably the rest of my life. I had graduated high school and, before I found out I was pregnant, I was considering college options. It felt like it was too late once they were born. Then, I realized I wanted to offer inspiration for them by building myself up again, so I went to college online through Westwood. I thought that was all a mom could do. It was expensive and non-transferable and a huge waste of my time and money. I just felt like I had created a deeper grave for my career prospects and filled it with student debt. I went back to the "working-poor" theory... but when I got fired from my job that only paid just enough to cover child care, I decided I needed a change.

All of this is why nine years ago seems so far away.

As of today, I've been a full-time student a legit university for almost two years, working towards my bachelors in biology. We've lived in this house, which we own, for more than three years. I've got four, awesome, frustrating, smart, healthy kids. I've had the same incredible relationship for more than four years. And, in this time, I've learned that being a parent is never easy. It's always difficult for one reason or another... and it won't be the same reason for long, or you'd get used to it. Also... things rarely go as planned, or as you feared.

We're celebrating the twins' birthday on Saturday. They've been in gymnastics for more than two years. They're starting taekwondo next month. They went ice skating for the first time about a week ago and seem to have found a new passion. They still pretend a LOT. They also read a lot. C loves Calvin and Hobbs, lately. S likes reading about animals. They saw their first orchestra performance on Sunday. Here are some other neat experiences from this year:

April: Helped build a chicken coop
May: Built a crazy fort in the woods and participated in their first gymnastics expo
June: Used the sewing machine for the first time
July: Fired guns for the first time
August: Road public transportation for the first time
September: Camping for the first time
October: Their first Zombie Crawl

They're growing up so fast, as cliche as that sounds. That's why I'm terrified by how fast the time is passing me by.

Introducing, My Homeschoolers

Click on the image to see a larger version

These are my homeschoolers. That’s S, on the left, C in the middle, and M on the right. S and C are five-years-old and are just starting a structured homeschool year. M is 2 and will be 3 soon. I make sure to keep worksheets and projects around for her, too. Wouldn’t want her to feel left out.

There is one huge advantage to having twins that has remained true for their entire lives thus far: They entertain each other. These days, that has allowed me some time to get my planner together, accumulate some worksheets, and do some research. But on the flip side of that is a problem.

They distract each other and rely on each other. When we’re doing lessons that involve me explaining anything for more than a minute, they find something funny in what I said and it can be hard to get them back on track. I’m sure other moms remember from their own childhood, how sleepovers got out of hand when it was time to go to sleep. If you have a friend laughing with you, it’s hard to stop. Then, if there’s a math problem or reading, S will wait for C to get the answer, and then jump on board with her, even when C is wrong, instead of working it out for herself. In that sense, it’s just like public school, except she’s not getting away with it for an entire school term and failing to learn anything for herself.

A couple of weeks ago, one of my kids asked why they’re not going to school. I explained (in so many words) that public schools often have 15, 20, maybe even 30 kids in a classroom with one teacher and that teacher has to keep up with all of those kids. The teacher’s job is to make sure that all of the kids understand each concept, and they’re limited to about 7 hours per day, and 4 or 5 days per week, so other kids are often working at the pace of those who are slower to grasp a lesson. And while I don’t expect to never have days or weeks or months when one of my kids is considerably behind another in a subject (even though they’re the same age), I do believe having only a few kids to look after, and having much more time available to me, allows me to make time to teach each one on her own level.

Yesterday, at Ikea, two different women directed this question at one of my five-year-olds, “are you in kindergarten?” The first time, the woman got a baffled look and a nervous smile, and I had to explain, “they’re homeschooled, and we just started, so they haven’t really figured out that not ‘GOING to school’ is still school.” The second time, my daughter proudly announced, “I’m homeschooled!” 

This post linked to iHomeschool's  *Not* back to homeschool blog hop

 

Beautiful Butterflies

It is technically my twins' first year of school. I've started semi-structured lessons, but they don't have to be registered with the state as home schoolers until august of next year. My (very loosely) categorized, dry-erase chart of lessons lists math, reading, writing, science, sign language, art, and culture. I also have a weekly planner in which I make notes of the specific topics we cover. 

Last week, we did 12 lessons. Some of them were fairly pedestrian, like reading practice, addition and subtraction, and writing letters and numbers. But in other cases, they certainly blazed their own trail. We talked about reflexes and the difference between voluntary and involuntary movements, then had a breakfast lesson about the causes, physiology, and symptoms of cerebral palsy. They were curious.

This week, they asked me about where butterflies come from. We discussed the butterfly life cycle, cocoons and chrysalises, and watched a video of a caterpillar exposing its chrysalis. Then, this weekend, we took a field trip to the butterfly pavilion and they got to see what many different butterfly chrysalises look like, and saw butterflies coming out of them. They remembered so many facts about it, and even learned a bit more about how butterflies eat. 

This, to me, is one of the beautiful things about homeschooling. They learn such a wide variety of new things because they're curious. I could dictate their education by scheduling what we will practice or discuss and when, but when they ask me questions and I answer, they're far more likely to remember what they learned. And I can offer them an incredible array of relevant field trips to help solidify the lessons.

My Homeschooling Training Wheels

Before I begin, this isn't about convincing everyone to choose to educate their children at home. It's about sharing my story, which might be your story, too. And it might just help you make the right decision for you and your family.


I really fought the idea of homeschooling my kids. I thought a lot of pretty typical things like, "public school was good enough for me." and "I don't know everything, how can I teach them all they need to know?" and "I don't want to deprive them of the social aspect of public school." Then there's the one most parents won't admit, publicly: "I can't wait to have that eight hours to myself!"


Now, my twins are five-years-old and I'm homeschooling them through their first year of "structured" learning. What happened?


Now that my first born kids are old enough to start school, I had to reevaluate those things I told myself, and it was scary. 


Was public school really good enough for me? Is it good enough for anyone anymore? Maybe it is, for some people. But it wasn't for me. And it's not a matter of smarter or better behaved or otherwise better prepared kids doing better (or worse) in public schools. Kids, and really all people, have different methods of learning, not all of which are met when a teacher has to constantly tend to 15 or 20 students. 


I got an education, and I graduated on time, and I was told how smart I was, but I wasn't interested in my lessons, I did as little as I could to get by, and the few things I was deeply interested in learning weren't offered at my school. Now that I'm openly talking with other adults, post-high school, I'm learning that I'm not nearly the only one who has these complaints. 


No, I DON'T know everything. That much is absolutely true. What I know is pretty limited. Of course I know a lot about what I care about. I try to keep up with psychology, and I can impress you with all of my knowledge if you take me to the zoo (I loved zoology and botany in school). But I'm only average at best in the field of math and when it comes to history, thank goodness for Wikipedia. 


Which brings me to my epiphany: I don't KNOW everything, but I have access to it. I have the internet and the library and my college text books. I also have the willingness to answer my kids' questions with, "I don't know, but let's find out!"


The most bizarre realization was that I do, in fact, want to deprive my kids of the social aspect of public school. I don't want to deny them the ability to make and spend time with friends. But that should not get in the way of a good education, and, in my experience, social issues destroy the educational scene in public schools for almost every student at one point or another (or many points). Honestly, the twins already have each other for distractions, and that's difficult enough.


As far as wanting that eight hours to myself... I can't answer for that. I still want that, and I know I won't get it this way. But nothing good in life is free. We barter our time for money at our jobs, and our money for food at the store, and as our Dalai Lama said, you should, “Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.” I'm not going to get everything I want. My children's education is more important to me than eight free hours a day to take more college classes, get a new job, or just bake a lot. My prerogative is to produce adults who are prepared for the world and ready to start a life and be successful, by their own definitions.


Here we go!