change/brave

My posts are getting fewer and further between! (I see that I never posted about our learning year this fall. I might come back and remedy that at some point.) 

 

Every year since 2010, I have chosen a word for the year. Each year, mentally coming back to the word has been a helpful anchor. Except 2021. My word for 2021 was Thrive, but it was a Survive year. It has been a rough year with much growth and yet much to keep us stuck.

As always, a dictionary of words were options for 2022 - there are so many good words in multiple languages - but I think I have to choose the word Change. And this year, in choosing Change, I have to pair it with Brave, because change is really hard for me, hard for others in my family, but I feel deeply that we need to embrace it, currently, and that takes bravery.

What words, thoughts, goals, etc. are you striving for in 2022?

the lake 2021

It has been awhile, hasn't it? 2021 has been...hard. For that reason (and maybe because of growing, changing kids and circumstances), I have gone blog quiet.

A couple weeks ago, we got to return to "our" special lakeside retreat for the first time since before the pandemic. Here is my post from last year. (It links to the several years' posts before.) The text below is what I shared on my personal social media page from our time up there this summer. Before you scroll on, let me share that "our" side of the lake and a vast portion of the surrounding area has now been burned or is now surrounded by the Caldor fire. The fire continues to burn, descending on South Lake Tahoe. We know exhausted firefighters are doing all they can to stop the spread and protect what they can. 

This place always brings up so much emotion for me, but with wildfire added to the layers, my emotions have been difficult to process and articulate.

Please keep our forests, firefighters, and residents in your thoughts.

 

Little cabin, 2018

From social media, 8/19/21: I haven’t been in this space in awhile. Life has been needing me full on. I hesitated sharing these photos. I have very few this year from our special place. We hadn’t been in two years (last summer being the first of my life not to go), and while normally it is the respite we all crave, this year’s trip was fraught with the deep anxiety, stress, and mental health woes that have continued to challenge us. We were able to get to this special spot for a few days with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend, but, to be real, it wasn’t the restorative nature balm I/we needed. It was familiar but different. It’s beauty was muted by hazy smoke. There were “roses” and special moments, I am glad we went, but in the end, mental health needs brought us all home early, and as hard as it was to make that call, it meant that we were ready to leave when the haze (present the entire time) shifted to heavy smoke and poor air quality. Once home, a small wildfire has grown, evacuating much of the area. So many emotions this year. 2021 is teaching us gratitude and grit.

 

 

2021-2022 home learning

I kept thinking I would come and post about our school year at some point after posting about the Caldor fire in the mountains, but I never did. The clock kept ticking, tomorrows kept coming and going and here we are. I am writing this a chunk of the way into the 2021-2022 school year (winter break!), but I might post it to the appropriate time period (Aug/Sept 2021), just for my own chronological documentation! I am pretty sure no one reads this blog anymore. (Who even blogs anymore?!) 

(Additional update, summer 2022, school year complete; I never did post this during winter break with a current or August publish date, so I am doing so now, with no edits to what I wrote in December/January. Just the way the school year rolled!)

Before writing this, I went back and read last year's start-of-year post. 2021 proved to be much harder than 2020 for us. It could be the length of the pandemic by this point, growing changing teens in isolation, the strain of tensions and strife in our country, all of the above, and more. But we took a full-on, desperate break from schooling over the summer. We crawled to the finish line of the 2020-2021 school year and I didn't even manage to celebrate the start of summer for or with the kids. 

There was quite a bit of reluctance to begin this 2021-2022 school year. Anxiety and stress were very high, showing up to things was difficult, but there were activities to show up to for the first time in months (over a year!). Also significant for us is that this is Brown Mouse's (and therefore our family's) last year with our beloved homeschool charter. For these and other reasons, we did a slow entry into the school year, and looking back, I refer to the first few months as "fun fall." Basically, we had been socially isolated so long, that if an activity was happening that a kiddo wanted to do, we tried to say yes. We put the priority on social and mental health and growth. It was slow going for Brown Mouse, not the kiddo we had expected to have a difficult time, but by mid-October, he was in a better place and a healthier groove, and I would say that both kids are thriving more now.

This year we have an 8th grader and 11th grader! Both my kiddos have learning differences, both have anxiety, and one was finally confirmed as Autistic (with PDA) this year. These differences deeply affect and shape their educations, our family, and their days.

I have been trying to hang onto Together Time, but it is hit or miss. This is the only piece of our intentional homeschooling that we still do all together and I try and bring content, conversation, books, and games that fill gaps and are short and sweet. One kiddo has really been struggling with auditory overwhelm, which is the primary reason it is hit or miss.

This autumn, our 8th grader got to take an ecosystems science class (in person, outside) with his charter, followed by an incredible series of field trips that included Lala Bug and me. The staff quickly noted how much the (small group of) middle schoolers were struggling post/mid pandemic, and have since also instituted a weekly middle schooler game time. At home, we have been working together through math and writing/language arts most especially. Science and history are easier to touch on naturally in our homeschool. Moving into winter/spring, he has again (4th year for him) joined the Shakespeare class. The students will be performing A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Club soccer resumed this fall and Brown Mouse was thrilled to participate. What we didn't anticipate, however, was how much pain he would experience running the full sized fields after such an epic growth spurt (8+ inches), so we paired soccer with physical therapy. Shortly after soccer season wrapped up, he very happily began mountain biking club, which will roll for the next 5+ months. (Both kids have been mountain bikers for a few years, really ramping it up during the pandemic.) Biking and bike mechanics are his primary passions, so he's a happy kid.

(Resources for him include; ALEKS, All About Spelling, Brave Writer, Write Shop, and others.)

Lala Bug didn't return to club soccer, but she did return to ballet since it resumed in-person. She danced all fall and is continuing to do so, adding club mountain biking for winter/spring. (Unfortunately for me and scheduling, the kids are in different biking clubs.)

For 11th grade, Lala Bug is tackling Algebra II, World History, English, and Italian. In the fall, she also had Psychology on her learning plans and for winter/spring, she's studying Astronomy/Rocket Science. And always, she gets credit for art, which, for her, is sewing, knitting, fashion design, pattern writing, pattern drafting, and more. She is getting more and more skilled and it likely to pursue these passions beyond high school. 

(Resources for her include: Khan Academy, Write Shop, edX MOOC, Mr. D Math, Crash Course, and more.) 

Both kids are also participating in a couple projects in 4-H; hiking and an environmental stewardship project.

I am trying to stay on top of providing resources, encouragement, teaching life skills, supporting mental health, and all the things, but I am also gently beginning to consider what I want to be when I grow up and retire from home educating these kiddos.

 

hope and thrive

 

 

This past week has been emotional for my family, comprised of seemingly small things, which, following the past 14 months of pandemic life, have felt significant, when all rolled into one typical little week. The makings of the week may have no interest to anyone else, but I know if I share them here, one day I will read this post and be touched by it.

In the past 7 days, the following has happened;

I went to the library for our weekly curbside pick-up and found that the library was open and I was welcomed in. I am fairly sure my reaction gave the staff a little bit of joy, because I had all the awe, wonder, and excitement of a 5 year old in a candy store. Yes, I had to hand sanitize, mask up, have my temperature taken, and more, but I got to browse books, touch books, and come home with books that I selected just because I liked the cover. 

Mike and I both got our first COVID vaccine shot. I have no desire to have any sort of debate here on my blog about vaccinations. My background is science and yet I did not enter the clinic lightly and it was a surreal experience. (We had minimal reactions to the first shot. I am aware through various sources of information that we are likely to react to the second shot.) 

We learned that we will be able to go to the lakeside cabin this summer. Last summer was the first year in my life that we were not able to go, it was a deep loss, and I thought (given the growth of the family that owns it) that 2019 might have been our final summer. I will cherish our days there.

We met with a neuropsychologist and left the meeting feeling validated and positive. In our many attempts to support our differently wired kiddo, this is one of few experiences to which I can put those words. 

It rained. We live in drought-stricken California, so this gift from the skies was appreciated and celebrated. In fact, we headed to our favorite 'pond' for a rain walk and exploration, during which the kids were delighted by a single little duckling that raced about in the water, as if it had finally be let out to play, and curious little salamander.

This week has felt like an out-breath after holding my breath for far too long. It felt like steps toward thriving (my word for 2021).

pandemic-versary

 

One year ago, on this date, the kids, through a class with F's (and L's former) charter school, put on a theater performance of Macbeth. (F was a murderer and L was costume assistant.) It was an outstanding performance, happening after quick and concerned communications and changes in plans last minute, as the news kept turning up new information about a growing pandemic. 

 

Grandparents were missing from the audience, from an abundance of caution. The dress rehearsal and performance were the only things F had done in 2-3 weeks, having been sick. (Yes, it has occurred to us since that he quite possibly had it.) 

 

After a joyous performance (who knew Shakespeare's Macbeth could actually have a hint of humor?), our family headed home. Little did we realize that that would be it for a long, long time. L's hybrid school had already begun shifting students to remote learning and M's work told him not to come in. L's dance classes got put on pause until they could shift to Zoom, where it has remained ever since. 

 

Effective Friday the 13th, our entire area shut down and on March 17th, became the first in the country to lock down into "shelter in place." An entire year has unfolded, unlike any other. M has never been back to the office, working from a stool next to our bed. Holidays and gatherings have all been outside and masked. We had our first summer missing time at the lake. We got chickens. We survived the worst wildfire season in decades. We have biked almost weekly with grandparents for months. F grew. A lot.

 

We have been extremely careful, and we and close family are all still here (blessing), there have been so many silver linings! But the social distancing has taken a toll on our emotional, mental, and developmental health and growth.

 

For the past couple of months, this year's weekly Shakespeare class has been on Zoom, with F as Julius Caesar and L as costume assistant again. Today, the kids resumed a weekly, outdoor, masked soccer skills group that they have been part of for 6+ years, the first time really engaging with peers in months. It was good. 

 

One year, then and now. What is your story?