Been a LONG time

Four months later... sheesh!

When I disappear for awhile, it's safe to say that stuff is happening.  Sometimes that stuff takes up all my attention and patience, and blogging has to take a back burner. This was one of those times.

We're still homeschooling though, in the midst of a whirlwind of trials.  When everything else is going haywire, homeschooling is the one constant.  I think we might be getting pretty good at it.

Where did I leave off four months ago?  Oh yes, February, and my broken nose!  That was a crazy time.  It's healed now.  Thanks so much for all the well wishes.  You all know how to a make a mama smile through the pain.

At the tail end of the broken nose ordeal, all hell broke loose.  Events happened.  I don't know that I can say more than that at this time, though I'm sure to touch on it in the future.  Needless to say, said events catapulted Moonshine into the thick, murky waters of the nine-year-change.  Nurturing Moonshine through this change has been an entirely different experience than what we had with Sunburst.  Much harder.  Much more volatile.  More tears than I can possibly count, and with good reason.  It's hard to wake up and realize that the world isn't as nice as you thought.

She's good now.  We're through the thick of it, at least.  Other life changes are simmering, big ones, so I'm sure we'll see more fun times ahead as she finds her equilibrium.  Thank goodness we're homeschooling!

Perhaps one of the greatest attributes of Waldorf homeschooling is being able to greet each individual child's stages of growth with curriculum.  Not at a random moment within a given school year because their age dictates it, but exactly when they'll benefit from it the most.  And that's what we've been doing this spring-- Old Testament stories.  Nothing says wake up and smell the nine-year-change like the banishment from the garden of Eden, the death of Abel, and so on.

Meanwhile, Sunburst has been living and breathing everything Rome.  The brutality and betrayal within Roman history has made for an interesting counterpoint as Sunburst watches her little sister move through such a strong undercurrent.  I didn't expect that, and I certainly didn't plan for it.  But the timing was perfect!  There are much greater lessons to be learned from history than just dates and facts.

We've done other things here and there, as well.  Kitty Bill is playing t-ball and loving it!  Moonshine is enjoying cursive handwriting and housebuilding, and as always, math.  Sunburst thinks her geology/mineralogy block is the best thing yet-- and that also comes at just the right time, because we're facing another huge upheaval.

Our job here in Switzerland is ending early.  We learned about the possibility this spring, and it has been looming and growing ever closer until the possibility has become a certainty.

Einstein's boss has been offered a prestigious position, the top of his field, at a fat cat research facility in Berlin.  He has invited Einstein to come along.  It's a lucrative job, a huge career move... and yet, it's Germany... where homeschooling is illegal.  I'm not at liberties to say much more than this, but I know that other homeschoolers can understand how the mere idea wrenches our hearts.  And thus, Einstein has been actively pursuing other options for us.

He has been away more often than he has been home, and that has been a strain on all of us.  He has been flying all over the world interviewing for jobs, attending meetings, conferences, writing books...  Finding a job in this economy is tough.  Finding a good job, a perfect job, a job that pays enough to keep the kids out of school where they belong... that's even tougher.  But we think we've found one.  Unfortunately, it's not back home.  This tears the kids up, but there are no positions to be had in the US right now.

Hopefully we'll have definitive news by the end of this week, just in time for summer holidays to kick in.  Between you and me, I'm looking forward to a few days of respite from all the stress and worries of reality.

Oh, and special thanks to those of you who have been emailing me, prodding me, to get back up on my blogging horse.  I appreciate your kind words, and I'll do my best to stay astride.  Hopefully I'll be back in the next few days to share some visuals.

Thanks for sticking with me.

A walking contradiction

This nine-year-old business is rather funny. Has anyone else noticed their nine-year-olds being suddenly plagued with contradicting emotions?

Sunburst, who is a Very Lovely Child-- and I say this from the deepest place in my heart without any facetiousness whatsoever-- is driving me completely bonkers. I keep reminding myself that this "Thing" she's going through is probably just as maddening to her as it is to me. Her new influx of hormones have her up and down like a yo-yo, pulled every which way with a good amount of tension on the line. Were I in her position, I'd probably handle it much, much worse than she is currently doing.

It's the contradiction of her wants and needs that gets me. It's at once both confounding and amusing. See? Another contradiction. It's contagious! And oddly, it's not that much different than that dance of independence exhibited by a two-year-old: I want to run away from you, but I need to make sure you're still there.

She wants her own room, her own space, and privacy.
And then she asks to sleep in bed with her siblings.

She speaks like she knows everything and anything.
The next minute she deflates and announces her own stupidity.

She's proud of herself and her accomplishments.
And then you blink and she's calling herself a failure.

She pulls away because she wants independence.
An hour later she wants to cuddle in my arms and have me sing her lullabies.


I'm pretty sure this particular "dance" doesn't end any time soon.... if ever, really. I know it will become less pronounced in time, maybe the tension will change or the speed of the reversals, but this push and pull routine is probably here to stay. It's something I still recognize in my relationship with my own mother. Hold me close, but not too close, but then hold me close again. Let me go off and live my life, but still be there. Don't hold me back, but don't turn away. Let me fall, but be there to pick me up and nurture my wounds. Don't tell me what to do, but still encourage me. No wonder the parents of teenagers go slowly mad.

Could it really be as simple as all that? If I just continually remember to "still be here," is that enough? Will she continue to pull farther and farther away because I'm here and constant? And is that a good thing? Do I want her to go farther? Do I really have a choice? She'll go anyway. But will she go with confidence and self-assurance? Will she make good choices? And will she come back? It's such a gamble, this parenthood thing.

And what of the kids who don't bounce back? You know the ones I'm talking about--- the ones that go really far away, like to the streets. To drink. To drugs. To destructive relationships. To the places we never envisioned for our kids. I want to know, were the parents still there, solid and constant, waiting with welcoming arms? Or, as I suspect, was there no one to bounce back to?

Obviously these are all rhetorical questions. I know I'm projecting a little bit, after all, Sunburst is only nine. I just don't want to screw it up. It's too important. So sometimes I feel like I have to look inside and ask myself these kinds of questions. Where are we? Where are we going? What does this child need for the rough road ahead, and how can I best give it to her? What can I do right now?

It's time to get off the computer, hold her close, and sing another lullaby while she's still interested.

Being old

Somehow I have gotten old. Not just simply old, as in where did all this gray hair come from, old. No. It's worse than that. Apparently I'm not just old, I'm old and crotchety.

Sunburst had the audacity to ask me the other day if I ever wished that I could still get crazy excited about things. Crazy excited? It hadn't even occurred to me that I wasn't, that I don't... The possibility of crazy excited had never even crossed the threshold of my mind, which undeniably solidifies my fate. At 36, I am old.

While I was standing there dumbfounded by my aging predicament, she then backed up her question with another question. "Do you even remember getting excited about things?"

Do I remember?

I think it's time for me to invest in pills and a walker. Do I remember? Hmph! The scary thing is that no, I don't remember. And suddenly my nine-year-old daughter sees me as some crotchety, grumpy, stick-in-the-mud, old person who lacks even one excited, fun bone in her body.

That can't be true, really. Can it? I mean, sure, I'm not so much fun as I used to be... wiping butts and cleaning up vomit and getting woken up in the night for almost a decade takes its toll on the fun-making, surely. Surely! Honestly, I don't even remember my life before motherhood. It's all a blur... a hazy, loud, caffeinated blur. But I must have been a teensy bit fun. I had friends... none of whom I'm much in contact with anymore. All my cohorts now tend to be people who met me A.C. (after children). Their visions are skewed by their own monstrous brood. We A.C. friends tend to back each other up out of parallel experience. We recognize the squeak of that hamster wheel going round and round and getting nowhere fast. Like me they have succumbed to the reality that we'll always be making breakfast, even though we just made breakfast. Oh, breakfast-- here it comes again. Those gals would tell me I'm a hoot without even blinking.

But what of the other people? Those friends from my youth? Surely they remember me differently. Maybe as focused, inspired, creative... giddy. No, giddy is probably going too far. But excitable? Enthusiastic? Was I any fun at all?

Sunburst's load of questions came streaming at me. Her inquiries about my youth have taken a turn lately... was I ever bad? Did I ever do anything I felt bad about? What did my friends and I do? Did I ever get in trouble in school? What was the worst thing I ever did? What was I like?

Of course I try to answer these things, but the one question I keep returning to is one I'm asking myself. How am I fun now?

Granted, I've been really stressed out lately. The move. The adjustment. And in the last two weeks I have suffered a huge loss... my stepmother passed away very suddenly and unexpectedly. I'm still trying to come to terms with that, something which seems so senseless. And so I feel entitled to a free pass on my "lack of fun" lately. But to the kids, my grieving and adjusting excuse doesn't fly. It's ongoing and timeless, and they are just desperate for some happy times.

Obviously that's an exaggeration. We do have fun times. It's a good life--- they skip around bursting into joyous singing. But I figure if one child is grilling me over the coals about my lack of excitement, then maybe I should stick that free pass back in my pocket and make more of an effort.

How am I fun now?

I'll post what I come up with. In the meantime, what makes you tick? Are you any fun? Do YOU still get crazy excited? Or are you just as crotchety as I am?