The new school year with our Classical Conversations co-op started back up a couple of weeks ago. Even though only three months had passed since our last meeting, the kids were all noticeably different: taller, sturdier, tanner, a tad more mature, a little steadier on their feet. It is remarkable how quickly kids grow, with bone structures and shoe sizes and vocabularies expanding by the day.
As adults, the physical changes are not quite as noticeable (with the possible exception of my forehead wrinkles that seem to deepen by the hour), but we, too, are constantly growing and changing from the inside out. This summer brought enough changes and lessons and growth opportunities to fill several months’ worth of blog posts. Here’s a snapshot of some of the more significant things I learned this summer.
RHYTHMS & CHANGES
I am in a laundry-every-day season.
For years, I set aside two days per week to wash, dry, fold, and put away our family’s laundry. Even though I wash all of our clothes together (because Mama ain’t got time to be separating colors), it still took up huge chunks of my designated laundry days. Then, in June, the kids had a week-long VBS that required them to rewear the same shirts each day, so I got in the habit of washing all of our clothes along with their shirts every evening—and it worked out SO WELL! Since then I’ve been doing a load of laundry every day: I toss it in the wash in the morning, transfer to the dryer after breakfast, fold during Nico’s naptime, and have the kids help me put everything away when they’re getting ready for bed. I know that this is technically less efficient than the batch-style approach I used before, but I have found it much easier to spend 15 minutes on laundry daily as opposed to trying to carve out two hour-long chunks of time each week.
On vacation, predictability is good, but it can be fun to change things up.
We drive to California to visit my parents every summer, and our roadtrip rarely varies. This year, a price hike at our usual overnight spot prompted us to veer from the beaten path. This led to two extremely fun overnights that we would never have taken otherwise: a night at a cute little KOA in Wilcox, Arizona, and another at a gorgeous condo in Palm Springs that we followed up with a trip up to Mount San Jacinto the following morning. Then, on the drive home, an hours-long crying fit from Nico prompted us to spend extra time at a rest stop to see The Thing—a roadside attraction we’d always said we would one day see but never had. It was totally worth the visit, and a good reminder that stepping out of our usual comfort zones can lead to some wonderful discoveries.
Homeschooling through summer is kind of great.
This was the first year that we opted out of an extended summer break, and it went even better than anticipated. Our whole family thrives on structure, so the school routine kept our home from getting out of hand during the summer months. School gave us something to do on days when it was too hot to be outside and all the indoor spots were swarming with school kids. It feels good to have knocked out a big portion of our curriculum for the school year so that we have more flexibility with breaks and field trip days in the coming months. And because all of our other activities were paused for the summer, it still felt like we got a break, so I’m not heading into fall feeling burnt out like I worried I might. The ONLY downside so far was that we didn’t get to take advantage of Back-to-School deals when supply shopping in June; I had never realized how expensive those items are at full price.
Small schedule changes can make a HUGE difference.
One way we helped bring a summer flavor to our school routine was by moving our daily trips to the Y from the morning to the evening, between naptime and dinner (which I would prep before leaving so that I could have food on the table within minutes of returning home). This shift meant that bedtime was later, which was fine because we were able to sleep in and start our school days later. It’s hard to put into words how much lighter and more laid back our days felt as a result of this very small change. An added benefit was that it got the kids and me out of the house during the witching hour. It also meant that Luke had the house to himself when he wrapped up with work, and he used this well-deserved alone time to tackle several home projects that had been lingering on his to-do list. Talk about wins all around!
The biggest changes announce themselves.
I tend to be a slow mover when it comes to change, with some changes getting put off indefinitely. But sometimes life forces my hand, and when that happens, the changes come fast. We had one such instance this summer with our pediatrician: we’d talked about changing practices for years and never committed to the move. But we had one visit in July that left me frustrated with our practitioner, and by the end of the day we had established care with a new provider. We had another instance of rapid change with the kids’ rooms this summer: the three big kids had been talking about merging bedrooms since before Nico was born, with plans to make Charleston’s old room their joint bedroom and the twins’ old bedroom the school room/library. We put them off for years, until this past June, when they randomly started sleeping in the same room every night. Less than a month later, their new rooms were complete! Our ability to tackle these daunting changes and projects with rapid speed has taught me that change has a lot more to do with mental readiness than the required physical effort.
Changing up the kids’ rooms was both easier and better than anticipated.
I had a lot of concerns about the kids’ new room situation, but one of the biggest was that differing bedtimes would be a problem. This has been a non-issue! The twins have no problem going to bed before Charleston and sleeping through his bedtime rituals. I had also worried that their rooms would feel crowded, but the layout worked out so that we actually have more empty space in both rooms. I’m certain other challenges will present themselves, but for now we are thrilled with the layout and glad that the kids are loving the change.
THE GROSS STUFF (NOT illustrated) (you’re welcome!)
Sometimes doctors recommend unusual remedies (and they work!).
One day last month, Kali started complaining about an itchy bug bite that bothered her so much she had trouble sitting in her car seat. Before bedtime, I asked her to show me so that we could apply some anti-itch cream. When she pulled up her nightgown, I saw that her upper thighs, underwear area, and torso were all covered in dozens of angry bumps. No wonder she was uncomfortable! We quickly got her to a pediatrician (a new one, NOT the one we recently left) who diagnosed the bumps as chigger bites and recommended that we paint each bite with clear nail polish. The internet told me that this remedy was an old wives’ tale and wouldn’t work, but we gave it a shot . . . and her bites were gone within a couple of days! Was it the nail polish that did the trick? We can’t know for certain, but I’m definitely keeping a bottle in our first aid kit for future use.
Always apply swimmer’s ear drops immediately after swimming.
All three big kids had double ear infections at the same time in early July. Of course this happened the week we had scheduled swimming lessons for the twins. Fortunately we were able to reschedule, and we were able to prevent future infections through the rest of the pool-heavy summer by keeping up with the swimmer’s ear drops after each swim.
Sometimes teeth have a hard time coming in.
Sully was experiencing pain when his first upper molar was about to come in last May. When we peeked in his mouth to check on the molar’s progress, we saw a huge blister where the tooth should be. The emergency dentist on call informed us that this was something called an eruption cyst, a harmless fluid-filled lump that would rupture once the molar pushed through. That’s exactly what happened. And when Sully got another eruption cyst on the opposite molar the following month, we knew what it was. It, too, quickly remedied itself, as did Kali’s when an eruption cyst popped up over her incoming molar a few weeks later. At the kids’ dentist appointment last week, I commented on how interesting it was that our family had three eruption cysts in two months, and our dentist agreed: he said that he doesn’t even see three eruption cysts in two years! Should we be proud or horrified by the twins’ “unique” set of mouths?!
Baby oil works for removing sticky beach tar from your skin.
While walking along a California beach during our stay with my parents, I inadvertently stepped in a puddle of what turned out to be tar. The thick black substance caked the entirety of my left foot and all initial efforts at removing the tar proved futile. After some Googling, my mom read that baby oil should do the trick. She happened to have a bottle in her medicine cabinet, so my sweet mom—who spent decades working as a nurse—set up a proper station to “treat” my foot. And after plenty of gentle massaging and scrubbing, she was able to free my foot from its sticky cage. The memory of my mom thoughtfully and tenderly washing my foot is one I will always cherish. What a lucky woman I am to have a mom who still cares for me in this way.
WHEN KIDS BECOME THE TEACHER
I need to remember to parent the kid who is in front of me.
Recognizing my kids’ individual needs is an ongoing process (one I wrote more about last week), and I had a very obvious lesson in this at my nephew’s birthday party in July. The twins had left their pool floaties at home, so Luke drove back to the house to retrieve them. He was gone for less than half an hour, but in that time Kali and Sully each asked me when he would be back at LEAST five times. I was talking with another mom at the party when Charleston came up and politely asked when Daddy would be back. “Would you PLEASE stop asking me!” I snapped. . . to which Charleston looked at me with confusion, stating that this was the first time he’d asked. He was right, it was his first time. . . but I had been so overwhelmed by the twins’ nagging that I hadn’t realized where the constant questions were coming from. It requires time, energy, and patience to parent four individual children, but they deserve that of me and it’s something I’m striving to do better.
“Mom, take a picture/video of me!” is the new “Mom, watch me!”
At the pool the other day, my kids kept asking me to take videos of them jumping into the water. Normally, I would happily comply with their requests, but this time I couldn’t get a video because we were swimming and my phone was safely tucked away in my pool bag. This slight removal opened my eyes to how often I am snapping pictures and videos of my kids, to the point that they expect it of me. I love having so much of their lives captured on film, but it saddened me to realize that they think a phone camera is the only way to have my full attention. I want kids who are happy to have mom watching them WITHOUT a phone, just as I was happy to have my parents watch my “amazing feats” as a kid.
My kids love managing their schedules in their own personal agendas.
Charleston will be moving up to the Challenge A level in Classical Conversations next year, so I asked a Challenge A tutor what I could do now to help him prepare. Her biggest tip was to get him a Day Planner so that he could begin managing his own work load. Of course, seeing Charleston with his new planner made the twins green with envy, so we got them their own planners too. Charleston has been great about sitting down on Sundays to plan out his week, and it’s been good to give the twins some exposure to this too, even if they still need a lot of hand-holding. I’m not great about cultivating independence in my kids, so this new routine has been valuable for all of us.
I am capable of taking my four kids to the pool without another adult.
I am not an especially nervous mom, but I’ve heard enough drowning horror stories to have a healthy fear of the kid+water pairing, and until this summer I would never take the kids to the pool on my own. But now they’re all a little older and becoming more competent in the water, and it was empowering to take them swimming this summer without the extra set of hands.
I never feel ready for the next stage.
Charleston started youth group this summer, which is wild to me—not just because he will always be my baby, but because my own youth group didn’t start until seventh grade, and sixth grade still seems WAY too young. I wasn’t ready. But he was, and he has been having a great summer with our church’s middle- and high-schoolers. Luke and I are volunteering with the youth group, so we have had to be ready for it for Charleston AND for ourselves, and it has been much less scary than anticipated. Big milestones like these may always be tough for me, but it’s helpful for me to remember that I NEVER feel ready, and still life moves on and works itself out.
I am a very different teacher since becoming a parent.
I am tutoring a Foundations class with our CC community this year, marking my first return to a classroom in any official capacity in almost twelve years. The year is young, but I already notice a remarkable difference in my approach. I could (and probably will) write a whole post or even series of posts on how my ideas on education and learning have shifted over the years, but the biggest change is that I am now more focused on educating the WHOLE child and not simply getting through the lesson. And while there are many reasons for this shift, the biggest is that being with my kids all the time (not just during classroom hours) has helped me understand interconnected learning and the long-term value of education in an entirely different, more comprehensive way.
THE BEST OF THE REST
Grumbling is a way of telling God that He cannot be trusted.
I don’t remember where I came across this bit of wisdom, but I jotted it down in a notebook and it’s something I’ve been thinking about a lot. My bad attitudes and complaints are an unhealthy way of dealing with unwanted circumstances: complaining can feel like I have some agency over the situation because it gives me something to do; in reality, though, grumbling is placing myself in the victim seat—unhappy, and unwilling to make meaningful efforts at change. Sometimes I may not be able to make any changes on my own, but instead of grumbling, I can turn to prayer, trusting God to handle the situation on my behalf.
Fictional holidays make a great excuse for a celebration.
Some friends hosted a birthday party for Harry Potter on July 31st (Harry’s birthday), and it was one of the most fun things I’ve ever participated in! They decorated with House flags and a talking sorting hat; the kids dressed up and got to do “spells” with 3D printed wands; and our hostess served smoking butterbear and cottage pie and a birthday cake that matched Hagrid’s cake for Harry from the first movie. We ended the evening with a viewing of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. The event ignited a love for Harry Potter in the twins, who are looking forward to reading the first book with me soon. And the whole evening got me wheels turning on how I can bring similar whimsical elements to my own hosting.
What did your summer learning look like? What huge lessons or small takeaways are you carrying with you as the season draws to a close? I’d love to hear about them!