Life Itself

Welcome.

This collection is a potpourri of articles that I wrote on learning and living at home with our children

Here are some scents in the potpourri blend:

I have a tough time with the transitions at both ends. When I come off a contract, I'm so used to being scheduled every minute of the day that it takes me about two months to mellow out and move at a pace that works better for fulltime life with children. When I start a new contract, it's hard for all of us to transition into having both parents work so hard.

When I'm on a contract, neither Garry nor I have any downtime. Both of us are on task, either with work or the house or the kids, from the moment we get up until bedtime, 7 days a week. Everything gets done, but we have no family time and no couple time. We cut outside activities back to the bone, refuse weekend engagements, etc. We have learned that it's important during these times to schedule the occasional hookey afternoon at the park, but essentially it's all work and no play and Garry and Heather become very dull individuals, chained to our self-imposed schedules.

Conversely, I feel better about myself as a human being and take better care of myself when I'm working than I do when I'm off (although we definitely eat better when I have time to really cook). Part of this is a matter of survival — if I don't take the time to exercise and do my spiritual practices, I'd crack from the stress.

I've worked part-time most of our 6 homeschooling years. I do programming and tech writing gigs for various Silicon Valley firms, mostly from home. Our major solution to the work challenge has been split shifts. When Garry and I are both working all out (40-50 hours per week for him, 30 or so for me), this means that the kids are always covered but we have very little family time.

My children are pretty independent (except the baby) and can do a lot of things for themselves and one another.

It helps if you learn how to multi-task and if the children learn to help themselves before asking you for help.

Here are some things that help me get a little uninterrupted work time:

Of course, I have a 2-month-old right now, so all of this is out the window, but we're starting to get back into a rhythm.

I no longer have lists of things I plan to do today unless they actually need to be done today. My lists are more "things that I might want to think about doing this week" or "things that need to be done some time in the near future" or even "things that I'd like to get around to this year."

When I really need to do something, it gets done. If something is on my list and never gets done, sometimes that's a clue that it doesn't really need to be done.

In life with small children, it's important to be able to take things at their pace. This might mean that all you get done some days is holding the baby and doing basic care for the older children. When I have a tiny one in the family, I'm sometimes thankful to get around to my morning exercise routine by 5pm.

Housework gets done by the "do the first three things that catch my eye" rule. When I do housework in tiny chunks like that, I can easily take breaks to fix snacks, watch a young gymnast, or read a story. Then I do the next three things.

I often work part-time from home, something that takes up a considerable amount of energy. Volunteer work can also be rewarding. I spend at least a few hours a month helping new moms get started with breastfeeding. I've also coached softball and volunteered for community events.

Seriously, if you have self-motivated kids, or if your kids happen to be going through a self-motivated period, why not launch your own projects? I always have a dozen projects I'd like to get around to, from studying chemistry to updating my Web pages to working on needlework to learning to paint in watercolor to exercising to meditating, etc.

When you're working on your own projects, your kids get to see lifelong learning in progress, too.

I'm strenuously avoiding doing the bills, hiding here behind my desk, listening to the girls talk about Greek and Roman history, adoption, slavery, gladiators, friction, fiction, Mary Poppins, and cookie-baking. Morganne is doing a pretty good job of answering Mati's questions.

I know that, the minute I get involved in wrestling with my checkbooks, the children will all have urgent needs that can only be met by me. And Malcolm will come whacking my desk with his plastic baseball bat, tossing the bills into disarray. Besides, I hate like poison watching that money hemorrhage away.

My kids aren't particularly self-directed these days. We've all been having colds, so they need more attention from me. Also, our house is torn up to the point that they need help getting to a lot of things that are usually freely available. There are nails and other hazards in the yard as well, so they can't go out and play without close supervision.

As soon as the butter is softened, the girls are going to make snickerdoodles, so I'll have to be available but not hovering.

The other day, sitting on the sofa with a child on each knee, I was thinking that an awful lot of mothering requires being patiently available but not intrusive. And it's definitely true that one can fit a lot of email into the cracks between being patient and being available.

To the checkbooks (but maybe I'll fix lunch and a pot of tea first...).

One of the really mind-blowing aspects of parenting is that it's so relentless. I think it's really important to do what we need to do for ourselves so we'll have what we need to give our kids. Sometimes this means taking a little time away from them. Other times, it means figuring out how to get what we need while they're around.

Still, I don't think that homeschooling means that you need to be with your kids all the time (even though I am with my kids all the time). If you need a break for your sanity, then take it. Children have two parents for a reason, after all, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with spending time with friends or relatives, either.

In my case, it helps a lot that my husband works from home. It's amazing how much easier things are with two adults around, even when I'm the one who is doing the vast majority of the house and child care.

Already, in the course of typing this message, I've interceded in a disagreement between my children, fixed a snack for the younger children, spent some time tidying the kitchen, consulted with my older daughter about today's musical selections, and fielded a question from my husband about bathroom cabinets. I don't get uninterrupted time for email, but I do get little chunks.

Over the past 11 years, I've gotten used to doing one little thing for myself, servicing a slough of interrupts, and then doing something else for myself. Some days, I don't get my morning exercise regime in until 5pm, but that's the way life goes. I've learned how to multi-task.

Before I'm done reading my email, I'll probably get most of my morning chores done, read a book to my younger children, plan the week's meals, and handle a few other odds and ends. It's good if you can figure out how to use these little chunks of time that life hands you. I always keep a book stashed in the car for those baby-sleeping opportunities. I've also meditated, written poetry, stretched my neck, filed my nails, and napped. I practice my tai chi stance any time I have to wait in line, and I've been known to do tai chi power walks in the grocery store.

It's good to remind ourselves that they're only little for a short period of time. Soon enough, they'll be 6'2" and we'll wish that they were asking us questions. (I think that this one comes better when you've actually been over the territory before. After watching my stepson grow up, I have a good idea of how quickly that first 18 years goes.)

You have to find your balance here (not mine, not your mother's, not your best friend's). Your needs and desires are important, too. You need to take care of yourself as well as taking care of your children. (You can't take care of your children unless you also take care of yourself.) Self-sacrificing is only going to make you resentful and irritable.

I suggest that you make a list of things that you can do for yourself. Things like exercise, making yourself a nice salad, reading a novel, taking a long bath, walking in nature, watercolor painting, practicing a musical instrument, stretching your muscles, getting a massage. You can't go on giving if your well is dry; you need to replenish yourself so that you can be the Endless Well of Stuff that mothers are supposed to be.

I have so many project ideas right now and so little time.

Here are the things I'm working on in my copious spare time:

Here are some projects I've tackled in the past:

Many educational materials assume you live in New England. Falling leaves in October, snow in January, snowmen in February, kites in March, spring in April, and thunderstorms in July. No place is this more striking than in treatment of climate and weather.

There was more excuse for this when I was attending California public schools in the 60s and 70s. It's really strange, though, because most of the textbook companies are located in California and California is a big chunk of the textbook market generally. Why then are we stuck with these northeastern images of what the world is like? The northeastern bias is striking in history and geography, too.

We have a lot of issues in California that we could discuss as part of climate and weather — drought and water distribution come to mind. Locally, our homeschoolers tend to study watersheds and water conservation because, even though we're on the southern edge of the coastal rainforest, drought is a perennial issue. We either get 40" of rain (at which point we're talking drought) or 100" (at which point we're talking floods).

I've come to think that it's very important for children to understand where they are in space and time, and the local human and natural history of the area in which they live. The character of the rock on which they stand (mostly Santa Margarita mudstone), the plant and animals community with which they share the world, climate, geology, and the cycle of the year in the place in which they live.

The rainy season has now started, and, with it, spring has sprung. Most of the vegetative activity for the year will be crowded into the next 4 months. Trees and perennials will add biomass, annuals will complete their vegetative growth, many species will bloom and set fruit during this time. Our period of biological inactivity is not winter, but high summer, when a dearth of moisture restricts growth.

One of the things that really helps when you are homeschooling children of different ages (my own are 10, 6, 3.5, and due in June) is to realize that your children's learning is taking place in the context of the most natural environment possible — your family and your community.

When you're homeschooling, it's best not to try to emulate schools. Instead, work with your strengths. You have a mixed-age environment where each child can work at her own level. Your children have the opportunity to learn and work together.

Whenever possible, it's a good idea to design the learning environment to suit the needs of both children. This takes some doing. If your older child is working with Cuisenaire rods, the younger child should have her own set of Cuisenaire rods to work with. If you set up an art project for the older child, the younger child should be able to work with similar materials.

It is not reasonable to expect a toddler to stay out of the thick of things. If you want one-on-one time with your older child, you need to do it when the toddler is otherwise occupied — asleep, with the other parent, playing with a babysitter, at a friend's house, whatever.

At our house, we often have all three children working on different projects simultaneously. Sometimes, I'm bouncing around like a ping pong ball. Other times, the children help one another and I get to work on my own projects while they work together.

We've never emphasized individual projects for the children or worked that hard at creating space for each child to do her own thing. Siblings are a fact of life for our children and they need to work things out so that they can accomplish what they want to accomplish in the presence of their siblings. Thus, if we have an unhappy toddler when we're reading or doing other sorts of work, we address the toddler's needs or shelf the project for another time when the toddler is less needy.

My daughters have learned that the appropriate response to toddler interruptions is to get the toddler set up with his own materials or another project so that they can work on their own. Another option is to give the toddler a way to help with the job at hand.

It takes a while to learn how to design projects so that everyone can enjoy them, but it's definitely worth the effort.

I think that age diversity is one of the strengths of homeschooling. Same-age classrooms operate on the principle that all 6-year-olds are (or should be) working on the same level. With the mixed-age environment of homeschooling, you know that you're going to be working on different levels, so you plan accordingly.

We do a lot of open-ended projects. If the children are working on their writing, the 10-year-old practices cursive or composes a play on the computer. The 6-year-old practices spelling or composes a letter to a friend. The 3-year-old draws individual letters.

The trickiest two things to work for us are read-aloud time and very messy projects. The 3-year-old tends to become distracting if he finds the story boring. It helps to alternate chapter books with picture books and to set up an activity on the floor for him to work with while we read. Very messy projects require one adult to supervise the girls and one to distract the 3-year-old.

People often comment on how difficult it must be to homeschool.

I just don't grok this. I enjoy my children and enjoy having them around. I can't see that sending children off to school is any sort of break at all — you've got all the scheduling and homework hassles eating into your precious time with them.

Garry recently had a lunch with a group of co-workers who all have 6-year-olds. After listening to them recount their school woes and frustrations, he came home overjoyed that we were taking the easier course of homeschooling.

Neither of us quite knows what to say when people talk about how hard it must be to homeschool. Compared with trying to get three kids ready for school and daycare every morning, riding herd on them to get their homework and projects done, dealing with the various school problems, and whatnot, we think that homeschooling is a snap.

Besides, we get to spend most of our time with them, which is why we had children in the first place.

On Friday, I needed to go pick up my car from an oil change. I walked a mile and a half into town, picked up the car, and stopped at the grocery store to pick up a few items. I was gone for exactly 1 hour and 10 minutes.

When I walked in the door, my 6-year-old threw her arms around me and said, "Mama! I've missed you so much. You were gone for such a long time."

Growing up, I definitely rebelled against my mother's Virgo perfectionism. I kept any space over which I had control like a rat's nest. This carried over into early adulthood, where I viewed my home as little more than a place to park my stuff.

Starting with Morganne's birth, we came home to live. The more we live here in our home (working from home, homeschooling, playing at home, birthing at home, etc), the more important it is for us to create our home environment as a place the nurtures and supports us.

Homemaking has gotten a bad name in the past 30 years or so. We no longer look at creating a good home environment as a valuable or important task. Our homes are, however, our children's basic environments. Children learn a lot about the world from the homes that we create for them. In making our home, we try to keep the following in mind:

I view housework as the creation of space. Feng shui in action. Domestic tai chi — removing the energy blockages in our house so that the chi can flow through our house and renew it. Working clutter doesn't bother me; at any time, you'll find various projects underway in our house. Drifting clutter, however, weighs on my mind and traps my attention.

We've been remodeling since October. As a result, we've spent the last 3 weeks digging out from the construction mess, expanding into our new space, excavating living spaces that were previously agglomerations of stuff. The process feels good, and I'm on a crusade to prevent horizontal surfaces from silting up again.

Garry and I basically harmonize on the homemaking issue. We both feel better when the house is relatively neat and tidy, although we have different areas of concern. He has a thing about clean floors; I'm more concerned with tables and counters. As a result, he sweeps frequently and tidies the floors. I wipe down counters and keep the mess on the dining room table to a dull roar. If Garry didn't do his part, our house would be a lot messier.

Morganne prefers to be home at least 2 days of every 3. Malcolm is built on pretty much the same pattern. They have lots of at-home projects that require their attention and they prefer their own company to anyone else's.

Morganne needs time to read, dream, write, draw, sculpt, observe animals, commune with trees, watch the clouds move across the sky, dance, sing, listen to music, drum, etc. These activities are important to her.

Malcolm needs time to sort collections of things, build with blocks, turn into various sorts of animals, draw, paint, look at books, work with models of the solar system, hang out with the cats, observe birds, play with water, etc.

Right now, Malcolm is building a castle under the sea in a coral forest.

Morganne wrote her first tragedy on Thursday.

6.5-year-old Matisse, however, loves people. She needs lots of human contact. If we didn't have such a big family, we'd need to find lots of external social outlets for her. As it is, she's often the motive force behind family outings.

I haven't read Joseph Chilton Pearce for years, probably because I have strong mixed feelings about his writing in general. I liked his main point about the magical thinking of young children. I thought his advice to mothers was both condescending and unrealistic, with not much room for the mother's sense of self or her need to take care of business.

I agree with the point that avoiding death issues creates far more fear and insecurity than dealing with death phenomenologically. Our culture whitewashes death far too much, hiding it all behind the sterile hospital curtains.

I remember my first sight of a dead human body. Seeing my grandfather in his casket was the single most important step in authentically grieving his death. Seeing his dead body, I was able to realize that he was gone. It was a powerful moment, with nothing of the morbid in it at all. His body was just the dead husk of the person I had loved, not some frightening spectre.

Our family shares space with cats, birds, and fish. We've had beloved kitties die. Our finch friends are not very long-lived. A few birds in our aviary die every year. When we discover a bird's body, we prepare the body for burial. The children are responsible for the funeral service and for decorating the grave.

The children's graveside services are very simple and moving. If friends are visiting at the time, they participate in the service. The children speak from the heart about the dead animal and heap the grave with flowers.

I am glad that my children are developing a natural and healthy relationship with death. It's our destination in this mortal coil, something to be accepted rather than feared and despised.

I think that this is another area in which the author is trying to prepare a perfect environment for the "magical child" rather than trusting to the real capacities of human children.

Historically, children have had to face death. It's part of our human heritage. In previous eras, children kissed dead relatives in their caskets and decorated the family graves. Death was much more widely accepted as part of life and children were not sheltered from death as they are today.

In August, I had a difficult miscarriage. My children were very disturbed by my incapacity (I bled enough to require hospitalization), but they were also disturbed by the death of their potential sibling. They called one another "the Survivors" and speculated about their siblings who did not live long enough to make it planetside. My oldest especially was struck by the frailty of human life, by the miraculousness of her own survival.

There was something very special about my children's grappling with the issue of death. They are forming their own cosmologies, coming to grips with their own mortality in their own time and their own way. I wouldn't want to deprive them of the chance to discover their own strength and depth of thought by minimizing or whitewashing the losses they face in their lives.

I do think the death of a parent would be a world-shattering event for a child. It is certainly an event I would not want my children to have to face.