It’ll Be a Good One

Come the first day of school, the only tears to be shed were because of the early hour. I, for one, am an early bird. I love seeing the sunrise and having the promise and potential of an entire day in front of me. Not all of my children have inherited my love of early mornings, though, and vehemently claim that waking any time before the sun is at least an hour over the horizon is cruel and unusual punishment. At least they still get the weekends to live their idea of bliss.

This year, Henry has joined his older sisters at school and it has been his literal dream come true. He missed the cut off last year by 25 days, but seeing as it ended with the Covid-19 pandemic, it probably wasn’t all bad that he wasn’t in school. This year though, there’s nothing to stop him. He counted down the days, made sure his backpack and waterbottle were ready weeks before the big day, and when I dropped him off at school for the first time, I was fighting back tears at seeing him go, while he jumped out of the car without a backward glance and a very happy, “Bbbbuuubbbyyyyyyyeeeee!” I guess being independent and excited about learning is a good thing, even if my heart was cracking as he skipped gleefully into school.

With more than half the kids out of the house, that means that Zoey is the oldest sibling and she knows how to be in charge. Thankfully, she is a benevolent sister who watches out for her two younger brothers. During our first lunch together, she leaned over and said that she and Peter are best friends. Thankfully, that is (mostly) true (unless there is a toy at stake that they both want, because then all bets are off).

Though the older children are gone for good portions of the day, it doesn’t mean that there still isn’t a lot of learning going on here. Take Adam for example–he’s currently rolling like a champ and is mastering the art of grabbiness. I won’t be able to have him sit on my lap for dinner much longer because he can yank a plate off in the blink of an eye.

Peter is currently working on potty training and the subsequent challenge of putting underwear and pants back on. His underwear is often backward, inside out, or he’s jammed his waist through the leg hole, and pants are an entirely different task. If they aren’t backward, they’re upside down, not on at all, or he’s decided that a second shirt will also work as shorts. The best part is that there is no convincing him that a shirt is in fact not pants, because he can get his legs through the arm holes. I’m going to let him learn that lesson himself.

Zoey spends her time reading, dressing her dolls, doing art, and watching out for the baby. She’s becoming quite the little mother hen and has learned how to get Adam to laugh when he’d rather be fussy. She also cooks and cleans, but her favorite thing to do is fold laundry. Seriously. She gets impatient when the laundry isn’t done and I tell her we can’t fold it yet. Foot stomp, eye roll, exasperated sigh–the works. It’s easy to laugh off because laundry is a chore I haven’t learned to love yet, so she is teaching me to find joy in organizing the mountain of clothes I face every week.

Some days, it feels like we’ve just dropped off everyone at school, driven home, only to get back in the car and go pick them up again. Jack works from home most days which means I get a few minutes of quiet time to listen to a podcast, and when the kids jump in the car, I am literally bombarded with information and stories about their day. I enjoy being available for those transition times and appreciate that they want so badly to keep me in the loop.

Just because Evelyn, Claire, Kate, and Henry are learning gobs at school doesn’t mean we’re giving them a break at home. It might happen more informally, but it may be more valuable because it’s the life skills that probably won’t be picked up at school. Is there a class for milking a cow? Not at our school. Will they learn how to run power tools? Possibly, but probably not while building their own mud hut in the forest (true story…). Will they learn how to grow a garden, harvest it, and turn it into spaghetti sauce? Unlikely.

A lot of their learning at home tends to come through play, too. Take Evelyn, for example–she’s learning how to style her own hair. Like it?

Claire is always the first to jump in the paddleboat with Jack and is becoming quite the fisherwoman. Never know when hooking a bass might come in handy.

The toy cars Jack bought in an auction lot will surely come in handy as Henry learns to navigate the driveway in them. He’s already getting better at his spacial awareness because now, he doesn’t back into the real cars when pulling out. I’m hoping it transfers to life when he’s driving a real car. That or there are self-driving cars and we won’t have to worry about it.

In case there aren’t, they also have been getting lessons in our actual vehicles. Where the window wipers are, how to honk the horn (their favorite), how to turn the cars on and off…who needs a remote starter when we can send an eager kid out to do it? 😂

There’s no doubt that learning is hard work and that sometimes means the kids come home and turn their brains off because they can’t hold one more lesson that day and that’s okay. There’s no race to know it all and what we really want our children to do is learn to love learning. I sometimes miss school and the time dedicated to knowledge, but realize now I’m learning on my own terms and in a lot of ways, I like that better. Whatever this school year brings, we’re hoping and working and anticipating it’ll be a good one.