One too many…

I just got back from a community dinner with our friends down the street. The vegan potluck features many delicious meals which I scooped out by the heapfuls and piled on a small dessert plate for Ethan and I to munch on. But just when I thought I had it comfortably full, I turned around and noticed THREE MORE dishes on the stove! What to do?!

Boy, this is life, zapped into this little kitchen surrounded by amazing opportunities. Choosing what I want on my plate is definitely one of the major themes this month.

Within just a few weeks of Verity’s birth, I already began working (from home) again and within a month I was starting to be involved in Ethan’s homeschooling and joined a Friday homeschool group. I tried to be cautious about my involvement and commitment level to the various offers out there, from putting in time with my local church to taking on more roles (and hours, and even new clients) in my business, to starting a 3x a week running schedule to do the 5k this Sunday, to signing up for random things like mommy and me yoga on Wed. and Sat. and Village Home classes on Tuesday and quickly, quickly, I am realizing, my schedule got FULL.

SO full, in fact, that when I turn around and notice all the pots still on the stove, I have no more room and things begin to overlap and fall off. Not good.

Fact of the matter is, I am a mom with 2 young kids; one who is an infant and one who is homeschooled by yours truly. I work between 20-40 hours a week, depending on the work flow, from home with only my darling husband as “childcare”. I often work a few long days per week and then other days all night, in order to make up for the days I must take off to participate in field trips and community events and so on. Oh, and let’s not forget spending a tad of my time with my “intentional community” at the Kenton House and, of course, my husband and marriage (and weekly counseling and reading material and all those things that come with that!) And then there’s the wee time to blog, or knit, or watch a movie, or have tea with friends. You get the picture.

The point is, my time is valuable. And there is a time for everything under the sun. And it is all meaningless. LOL (okay, that was a tad out of context, but sometimes it feels that way, heh? Solomon certainly was wise!)

Where am I going with this? Here it is –

Today was Ethan’s first day of school at Village Home. We were SO looking forward to it. Here’s how it went:

Up working til passed midnight last night, nursed twice in the night, woke up at 7:30am to get kids dressed, ran out just before 9am with no breakfast (the kitchen was too full) so we ran to Posies, ate our breakfast in the car on the way, got there (in Beaverton) 5 minutes late. Got to class 10 minutes late.

First class of the day? Word World. Hmmm, how do I sum this up? The teacher mainly passed out worksheets. The lowlight of this was when another mother did Ethan’s FOR him. Yes, she sat there and told him every single answer to a worksheet he already knew how to do, not even letting him guess himself. I suppose his size deemed he needed the help but I was stunned silent and didn’t know what to do. I actually had to walk out of the room! I was like, if I’m going to spend an hour watching my son do TWADDLE, at least let him do it himself! lol Then a story was read, Blueberries for Sal, which we’ve been reading allllll summer long. Then they did another worksheet and colored in things that are blue. What? This is a $50 class (for the semester). So that was a little of a bummer, but I was still hopeful.

Then there was Move and Groove, a dance class. Ethan was very shy about moving about and following the teacher. He constantly wanted to be up at the front, talking to instructors, rather than following along. I watched him pick his nose on the sidelines for about 20 minutes (I’m not kidding, either, he dug out some good ones) before I was able to pass off the baby to Chris so I could go do ALL the dancing activities WITH him for another 40 minutes. It was fun, but I will not be able to do that each week, as the morning classes were going to be the hubby’s duty and the afternoon classes were going to be my duty. So this was definitely not a permanent solution. And I definitely felt that he was not that interested in the class, AT ALL.

The highlight of the day was meeting up with a home school mom from our Friday group and her son and going out to lunch (Korean, yum!). We rushed back for “Knitting” which was basically a small group of knitters, over half of whom were tweens learning for the first time. Ethan was frustrated doing his finger knitting in front of people and ended up practicing his “common words” flash cards instead. I was beginning to feel like this exhausting day was not really worth our time, or our money, but I wanted to get through the last class.

Organic Gardening. This is perhaps the best class of the day, which involves an instructor answering our questions that come up about our home gardens all the while we are weeding and planting and what not a space at the school with two small raised beds. It was fun – but alas. We have a garden at home. We do this every day. Do we need to travel 3 hours both ways via lightrail and spend our entire day here for that?

So we finally get home at about 4:30. I promptly start the meal for the vegan potluck and Ethan is a great little cook with me, helping me clip the tips of the green beans, par-boil them, add the cherry tomatoes and stir in the dressing. I talked to him about the day.

He says he enjoyed himself. He says he wants to go back. And I know on some level he does. This is hard!

But I asked him if he wanted to hit a storytime each week at the library like we used to instead of going to the reading class for a story, and that we’ll still see William and Brianna several times a week for playdates and our Friday group. I remind him that we dance together everyday, so we can still do this at home, as well as garden and knit. But if he REALLY wants to keep going on Tuesdays, I say, then okay – I’ll keep trying to make it work.

In the end, he admits that he could do without the Tuesday school day, in exchange for the dancing, knitting, gardening and reading we already do anyway, integrated into our daily life so effortlessly.

This was all such an odd experience. I thought I would love starting this little “homeschool” classes day, but I realized even more why I chose to do what I do: Because learning is so alive, so vivid, so individual; Because peers should be mixed ages, mixed abilities, mixed walks of life; Because life should be organic and integrated and rhythmic- not a rush and a squeeze and a stress; Because our time should be FULL with not only wonderful activities but also plenty of open slots for spontaneity, generosity — even so-called “inconveniences”!

I end the day right now reflecting on how grateful I am to live the life I do. I love that Ethan’s classroom is the world, his teachers are all around him and his learning happens constantly. He thrives in it and he’s confident in it, he has dear friends as well as casual playmates. Upon carrying bags full of plums from our tree to our neighbors yesterday, it occured to me that he also has a “grandpa and grandma” figure right next door, as well as “Aunts” a few doors down from him, with dogs he gets to play with since he doesn’t have one, lol. (Chickens I can handle. Dogs? No.)

In Portland, we are building, (ever so slowly sometimes!) a surrogate family – complete with odd characters, clumsy experiences, and — eventually — roots. A few weeks ago I was seriously at my wits end with homesickness and wondering if I should just pack it up and move in with in-laws back in Florida!!! But since “hanging in there”, I see evidence each new day that we are here for a reason and that things are actually going quite well.

So long as I can keep my plate open enough for community experiences that matter, I think we’ll do just fine.

(On a related note, our Kenton House will be the new NoPo – the short name for North Portland- Home Group at Evergreen! I am very excited to get some more intimate and smaller experiences with a group of great people while we shares meals — and lives– together. Pray for us!)