The Great outdoors

It is damp and grey outside. I have to leave the house in less than half-an-hour for a routine blood appointment and I am trying to fit in all my usual computer based jobs before the day proper starts. The children, inspired by Horrid Henry, want to build a fort. In the garden. In principle I was excited, I was already beginning to think of who I know who might be able to help us, where we could get wood, what a great project this could be and what fun they would have in the Summer. But no, they want to build it now. And they need string, which requires me heading out to the shed to find some. They also need me to release the slide from where it is tied up, literally up, pointing to the sky, off the ground to let the grass seedlings grow, although they never did, so where the slide lands is just a patch of mud. So I've suggested later and now they are building pod-racers out of Lego.
But I wish I was a more out-doorsy sort of mum. In Yorkshire I met another mum who declared that her children were always out of doors. I know that Charlotte Mason praises the virtues of being outside as much as possible. In blogs of other Home Ed families I read of and see the great outdoor adventures they have.
But I hate mud and I don't like being cold. On a balmy Summer's day I love to take a picnic to the park and let the children climb on the fallen trees but I have never liked standing around in playgrounds or woods watching them run about. I would rather be indoors. There are whole days, yesterday being one of them, that we don't set foot outside the house. If I lived in the Big Woods of Wisconsin in the depths of winter then I think this would be ok, but I don't, I live in suburban Outer London and I have playgrounds and parks within easy reach. I fear that I am letting them down, failing to provide something vital, some connection with nature, exercise, fresh air, sunlight.
Perhaps I'll take them to the park later!

Mission Accomplished

I did manage to get all my eight things done yesterday! What is more, I felt calm and relaxed at the end of the day and spent a few minutes with my boys poring over the Lego catalogue and helping them write a list of what they wanted to buy. This is in contrast to my usual, exhausted good night kiss and request not to hear from them until morning! So I am trying the same strategy today (although today's list has 16 things on it, writing my blog being number 3.)

I am feeling that persistent guilt that I am not doing enough with the children and I am trying to dampen it by telling myself that this is still our Christmas holiday. The truth is that I am just feeling very flat and unmotivated. I am trying to notice how I feel without forcing myself to change and I am hoping that by being a little more gentle on myself, by lowering my expectations, I will rest body and soul and feel re-energised to start next week.

In the meantime, I have followed this link from Here a the Bonny Glen, to a great site of read-aloud poetry. Here is 'Say Not the Struggle Naught Availeth' read with a voice like warm chocolate. Maybe I can find some time to listen to more of this today ...

A Wasted Day

It is on the days that I feel least like I am coping that I begin to obsess about all the educational opportunities the children would have if they were in school and thus the complete waste of time that being at home with me all day is turning out to be.
Last Thursday I was feeling pretty spent and so I cut down to the absolute bare minimum what I thought I had to do. Friday wasn't much better so I applied the same philosphy and looked forward to a new week. However, yesterday, I felt even lower and when the library web-site reduced me to a sobbing wreck I decided to batten down the hatches and only do the essentials, again. However, my doubt-defences were seriously compromised and I felt like a big fat failure of a Home Schooler. But, I got the children out of the house and to the library, and we delivered some church Christmas fliers on the way. This proved a surprising hit with the children and, as it was sunny and this seemed a good thing, we did some more after lunch. We met a neighbour with whose daughter does Rainbows with mine so I was able to offer a lift on Saturday and we met her very excitable dog to the delight of my children. I needed comfort food, so I made cookies with my little girl and then insisted on some "Tablework" (complete with"if you were at school you'd do this all day everyday, you have no idea how lucky you are" lecture). In half-an-hour or so each of my children had done something towards the goals I optimistically set at the end of our recent BraveWriter workshop.
So, if I were to be clocking up educational experiences and temporarily abandoning my belief in autonomous learning, by my reckoning we covered Numeracy, Literacy, Physical Education, Social Skills, Home Economics and Information Communication Technology.
It does make me feel better to put it like that!

Indecision

Two years ago, our church began to plan for a second team to visit Watoto in Uganda. I was tempted, but couldn't see how I could take two weeks out of my life and away from the children to visit Africa and I decided not to go. God, however, had other ideas and in April 2007 I found myself trekking in the Mountains of the Moon in South West Uganda for a reality tv show for the BBC!

Our church are now planning another Ugandan visit in August 2009. Knowing that there would be another trip, I had thought all along that I would go, and I immediately paid my deposit cheque. But I am still undecided. If I am honest with myself, it would be a huge relief not to go. The trip will be just over a fortnight and, while my husband is very willing to let me go, I feel that it is a long time to be away from the family. It is also very expensive, and a lot of the family's money to spend on just me. However, I was convinced it was what God wanted for me and I would love to be involved in the team and the work they will be doing. I'm stuck. Is it fear that makes me feel uneasy about going: do I just need to step out in faith? Or is it a different kind of fear propelling me to go: fear of feeling left out, fear of missing out; am I still listening to a message from God which is past its sell-by date?

Noticing

He was very grumpy. Nothing was right. As I selected books which I thought he might enjoy, he told me time and again that they were boring and he didn’t want to read them.
I stopped. I looked into his eyes. It was around 2:45pm and I realised with shock that I had not noticed him, I had not listened to him, all day. We had been too busy doing all the normal, routine stuff.
I had nagged him, cajoled him, fed him, instructed him, looked at spellings with him, helped him do a worksheet, read to him but I had not heard him. He had his heart set on a Star Wars book and the library didn’t have it. He didn’t want anything else.
How can it be that I spend all day at home with my children and yet days pass when I do not connect with them, when I do not look into their eyes, when I do not hear them?
Why does it feel impossible to fit in piano lessons, which both boys have asked to resume? Why have I only read five chapters in two weeks of the special, girls’ Chapter Book I specially got to read just with my little girl? Why did I only half listen to a request to do some free-writing, maybe later was my response.
What happens to those 24 hours, so that I go to bed exhausted with a to-do list longer than at the day‘s beginning, and yet feel that I have not spent enough time with them?

Just Another Practice whilst wearing Smarter Clothes

My brother-in-law sent me such an encouraging e-mail yesterday. He likes what I write, and says:

Surely the important thing is you've enjoyed thinking about what to say and
what you'd like to tell people. When you don't, you'll stop.

This brings home to me what this blog is for: it's for me, for my pleasure, for my writing development and for my record of what matters to me. If others enjoy it, and I hope they do, that's an added bonus.

It is very important to me what people think of me. Just a couple of weeks ago, I volunteered to take on a role in my church. I was excited by the idea and also pleased and flattered that I was considered up to it, good enough. It transpired that the job didn't need doing, and I was deeply disappointed. Underneath my good motives, was an agenda all my own. I wanted to be seen to be fantastic, I wanted to people to think and speak highly of me. It had become about glorifying myself. It was a harsh lesson for me. I thought I was over a lot of that stuff, but there it was, lurking in the background, just waiting for an excuse to come out. I find it easy to be flippant about my failings, to make a little joke of them, but to honestly confess is uncomfortable. A wise friend told me this week that one way to conquer such lurking sin is to bring it out into the open, into the light.

I have taken my stat counter off my internet bookmarks, (I'm not sure if I'm ready to take it off the blog altogether) and this will stop me checking it so frequently. I'm going to write about what matters to me, my children, my faith journey, my Home Ed journey and other stuff that catches my interest or makes me shout or laugh.

My brother-in-law plays in a band. He compared my blog to his performances:

It 's not the end of the world if the customers don't turn up - it's just
another practice whilst wearing smarter clothes !

Uphill struggle

I'm finding the blog really hard work at the moment. It is 3 months since I started blogging and I have had fun: it has made me laugh and I hope it has made you laugh; I have looked at life through a different lens as I have spotted 'bloggable moments'; I have enjoyed grappling with words to try and describe a moment just so; I have been thrilled to receive comments and to know that someone, somewhere is enjoying what I write.

But I recently my doubts have coming flooding back. 'Why would anyone be interested in you?' says the accuser in my head. If I write about how I've messed up, it feels like self-pity; if I write about how good things are it feels like showing off. If I sound off about Home Ed I wonder if I am strident, opinionated, defensive. I read other blogs, blogs that get dozens of comments, and wonder how they do that and why I don't. I have a stat counter so I can see how many visitors I have and I know that I have a handful of regular readers, and I wonder who you are. I wonder why so many first-time vistors don't come back. I chastise myself for trying to measure the success of this blog by external criteria, by judging myself by the reactions of others. Even writing this is causing me anxiety: am I just feeling sorry for myself? Exposing too much? Being, heaven help me, needy? Is this all just self-indulgence?

There is more to think about here, but it feels good to have got some of it out. I have no witty remark to end this time, just another morning with the children to begin and another day to live.

I have just finished reading Eragon. Originally I chose it from the library for my eldest son, a voracious reader, especially of fantasy. He did not like it and in retrospect I think it is perhaps a bit old for him (he is 9) but I loved it and was gripped.

After all his adventures the hero, Eragon, has defeated the evil Shade. A rite of passage for him, through it he accepts his destiny and becomes ready to fulfill his role as a Dragon Rider. The final chapter held some words that really spoke to me:

'He had lost much that was dear to him, yet fate had given him rare and great
gifts; for the first time, he was proud of simply who he was. As if in response
to his brief self-confidence, the Shade's smothering blackness assaulted him
anew. His indentity trailed into the void as uncertainty and fear consumed his
perceptions. ... He fought against the Shade's sinsister thoughts, weakly at
first, then more strongly. He whispered words of the ancient language and found
they gave him enough strength to withstand the shadow blurring his mind.'

I am not thinking of those adult, rational, re-considerations of a choice or of direction, but of those insidious doubts, the 'demons', that snake out from the dark recesses of my mind in lonely or stressed moments and threaten to swallow me.

I would like to learn to 'words of the ancient language': perhaps some of Philip Yancey's, ' I am not yet made perfect and I am already forgiven'; perhaps the love notes sent me by my husband and children; perhaps making a note when someone offers me upbuilding or encouraging words; perhaps even my own assessment of a job well done. I would like to be proud of simply who I am.

What will your kids think of you when you're gone?

As I drove through the park this morning, I caught a few minutes of Saturday Live on Radio 4. Shami Chakrabarti, director of Liberty (a civil liberties campaigning organisation) was sharing her 'inheritance track', the song she would hand on to her child. In her words, this very special question 'goes to that dark place, what will your kids think of you when you're gone, will they think you broadly did a good job or you broadly screwed their lives up?'

I sat up and took notice. She expressed a thought that lurks in the darkest corners of my mind and that whispers in the despair of the awful moments of being a mother. The decisions I make so carefully for my children: religion, education, the toys they play with and the food they eat; the reflex behaviours which erupt from my own insecurites, phobias and plain old bad temper; how will they influence, even damage, my children? Is it enough to do the best I can with the information I have and the personality I am? And what else is possible?

To hear this expressed by a prominent and respected woman in the bright sunshine on national radio made me think, 'Do all mothers feel like this?' This came as a huge relief. Perhaps it seems obvious, maybe we all think it and I guess the truth is that we will never know the answer.

Procrastinating

I have house guests arriving today. Currently the house is in complete disarray. I am persuading myself that I can't really do anything until the bed linen has finished the washing cycle and that time planning the rest of the morning is time well spent; but I am recognising that pattern of mine, of which I am newly conscious, of leaving it all to a crisis point to generate the necessary energy to do it. Also, and I think this is a 24-carat reason, I have to post in my new blog. After all, I only started it yesterday and I want to start out as I mean to go on!

My children have got out at least 100 soft toys and playmobile characters to perform the wedding of my middle son's favourite stuffed rabbit, Rosie, to my eldest's Blue Teddy (he was never one for fanciful names!) Watching, somewhat impatiently, thinking of the mess that needed tidying up, I noticed the voices in my head having a heated arguement. The negative, doubting voices wondering what other children of this age would think, the ones with Playstation and Wii. Surely playing weddings with soft toys with your little sister is not cool: are they socially disadvantaged? On the other hand, says my radical unschooler voice, look at the imagination, the social imitation, the language, the inclusion. And then, and this is something I'm just beginning to learn, there was another voice saying, "Just watch, don't comment, don't judge, don't use this to justify or doubt your choice of Home Ed, just watch." And so I did. And actually, two soft toys getting married isn't too interesting, but at least it was quiet in my head!

Jump right in

Ive been considering a writing a blog for while now: somewhere to write, somewhere to create, somewhere to share my reflections on my life. I've been so encouraged, so inspired by blogs I've read and I've thought, "I could do that," but it's quickly replaced by "I'd like to do that but ..." and out come all the doubts. So I'm jumping right in, inspired by the idea "If I didn't have to do it perfectly, I would try ..." (not mine, but Julia Cameron's in The Artist's Way) so here I am, trying blogging.

Today we saw some greenfinches in the garden. I have heard greenfinches often, and chaffinches and goldfinches, but they never seem to come to our feeder. Illogically, I feel rejected! So I was pleased to see one scoffing his breakfast this morning, and another loitering close by, and a third came to join them. We watched a while, and laughed (quietly) as each time they took a seed, the husk was delicately spat out. As soon as they had gone my son ran out to collect the discarded husks. I am amazed that a bird can be so dexterous with its beak. And so we had a little pile of emptied husks which had, just a few minutes earlier, been inside the mouth of a greenfinch. It felt like real contact with nature, a precious moment amidst the morning chores!