Every year we’ve homeschooled, I’ve thought to myself that I should really blog our adventures, and then for various reasons, I don’t. Well, I’m not promising anything sustained to myself, but I’m going to at least get a post up here. It probably won’t be clever and may not even be proofread, but here goes.
We’re just working on some science and art in June. We won’t officially count days until July, but we need a little structure in our lives, and if we can build some days up now, we either get some wiggle room on busy days during the school year (the likely scenario) or can taper down to shorter days in the spring (the preferred scenario).
We’re launching into a study of biomes and animals this year, and since we only did art and science today, it gave time for an extensive project.
First, we read our chapter is Sassafrass Science. I might go into a more in-depth review of it later, but for now, I’ll just say that I bought it on a whim off Facebook Marketplace awhile ago, and it wound up being the way I chose to introduce our various biomes/locations.
After we read the Sassafras chapter, we talked about the differences between temperate grasslands and tropical grasslands. This website was a helpful guide that I could summarize on the fly. While I read, the boys were coloring their biome sheet on savannahs from the biome pack available from Only Passionate Curiosity. There was some grumbling about having to write some facts on the coloring sheet, confirming my instinct to ease into our routine.
Then we moved to the floor with paper, paper cutter, and crayons to fill in various temperate and tropical grasslands on our world map. I found this website was helpful though it doesn’t outline countries, so the grasslands are sorta kinda where they belong. I know it’s not totally accurate since we already had to adjust to extend our savannah into Kenya, the country we were reading about in Sassafras. The boys then filled in the outlines I drew with little slash marks while I made labels for the various grasslands.
We created keys with the colors of crayons that we used as well as some defining features of the biomes.
I had a go around with one son about the facts that were going on the keys because he thought I had them reversed. Sigh. Homeschooling’s tough moments are often when you have to have the deeper conversations like the one we had to have about it being ok to be wrong but not ideal to then dig in and refuse to try to see the error. After getting over that hiccup, my kiddo eager to use the paper cutter, cut the labels, and it was all hands on deck to get them on the map.
Later in the day, I got to the library to get our books on hold and to glean some other books from the stacks. Some of these are books that we used in our preschool geography study, and I’m excited to revisit them, but many of them are new to us.
And, in full disclosure, check out the books that are STILL on what is supposed to be the bookshelf that holds our current works in progress. Christmas books! I have to try to do a major organizational sweep of the school room before July 1st. I’m totally stressing out about that.
We did it! In 2023, the boys spent 1,002 hours outside.
That was our second year to accomplish meeting our 1,000 hours outside goal. I wanted to share some reflections about the year.
First, it was easier than the first year. Yes, there were outside meltdowns. Yes, we still ate waaayyy too many granola bars. Yes, some days were not magical. Yes, there was whining about walking and biking too far on the trails. However, I remember January into spring of our first year was hard, some days really, really hard. We saw enough glimpses of outside joy to keep us going, but getting the kids into coats was a fight, convincing them to go outside was often a fight, getting them to settle into activities without screens or inside toys was a fight. But, this year, the boys often seemed semi-feral to me. Sure there were days I had to cajole and beg to get them outside. But, more often than not, they were the ones begging to get outside. We all have expanded our definition of acceptable outside weather, so days in the 40s this winter feel pretty ok to us. Notice that I didn’t say they are glorious, but we know how to bundle up and take advantage of the fact that it’s not 20 degrees or below. And, the boys definitely have learned to entertain themselves outdoors. On numerous occasions, I’ve been told that they don’t want to go to a playground. They just want to stay in the backyard. One time, they spent more than an hour in our outdoor storage box using it as a fort. And, drumroll please, Ezra knows how to put his own gloves on, so I only really have to get one kid into outdoor winter gear.
My second observation is that this truly is a team effort. We would not make it to 1,000 hours each year if Mark was not on board. Period. I think I completed more editing this year than any other previous year, and it was weirdly timed with a heavy summer workload. So many times, Mark would come home, pop up our portable shade canopy, fill the baby pool, and sit outside with the boys. In September and October, I lost my mojo. In September, instead of chipping away at the 48 hour deficit we had accumulated, we ended the month with a 57 hour deficit. I attribute our tumble to a combo of three consignment sales piled on top of my normal life commitments; an accident that totaled our van and the ensuing physical, mental and emotional aftermath of that; the relentless editing; and the fact that I felt medically off. After a lousy September full of rain and all the other life stressors, I pretty much just said, “I give up. I want to get close to 1,000, but we’re not going to make it, and we’re not going to go insane trying.” However, Mark picked up the baton at that point in the race and really stepped up efforts to get the kids outside. I went to the doctor and found out that I had a significant iron deficiency. By November, I was able to get on some supplements that stopped the frequent mild dizziness, cleared up some brain fogginess, and alleviated some of the fatigue. As we entered November, I saw we still had a shot at making it, and our playground time increased. Truly, it took both of us moving in the same direction to get the boys outside.
My third observation is that our time outside felt more organic our second year. In January 2023, we got 45 hours outside compared to the 18 of our first year. When we hit summer in our first year, we were playing catch up. And, when you follow the seasonal plan for 1,000 hours, you’re already slated to spend 5 hours outside for June and July. That made the first year hard because even though I do not like heat or humidity, we were staying out in it, clawing away the minutes until I was too grouchy to stay out any longer. In 2023, I reworked the plan to try to capitalize on the weather we like the best. I geared up to knock out more time in the spring. In May, we were outside 138 hours. Unlike our first year, I don’t remember slogging through long days. I remember days of three meals a day eaten outside in the sunshine; I remember swinging on the swing in the backyard while we read books; I remember all of us digging in the garden and flower beds for hours on end. If we had a day when we were outside for 6 or 7 hours, it was generally because we felt like outside was the best place to be.
My fourth observation is that the boys are more independent and that was super helpful. One of the mysteries of the 1,000 hour challenge is that your house still gets messy and out of control even though you are practically living outside. Like, how???? But, it’s a pretty common lament in the Facebook group associated with the challenge that it’s pretty difficult to balance the chores like laundry, cooking, and cleaning while being outside so much. This year the boys were able to play outside on their own with me observing from the kitchen, which meant I could fold laundry in the sunroom, get the kitchen tidied, or leave them playing while I prepped lunch. They also seem rather impervious to the weather, so I’m sure me being able to duck into the air conditioning to regroup while they still lived their semi-feral dreams definitely helped us get more hours.
And, finally, we are getting more consistent. In 2023, we missed 41 days of being outside. From April 30th to September 5th, we didn’t miss a single day outside. That is down from 66 days of not being outside in 2022. I count a day as missed if we don’t get outside for 15 minutes.
So, where do we go from here?
This challenge has been almost inexpressibly good for the rhythms of our family, and being outside is an engrained habit for us now (though we did miss a whopping 12 days outside in January!!). Nonetheless, pretty much everything in our culture fights against enjoyment of the outdoors. Knowing that and knowing myself, we’re intentionally tracking our time again this year. If we rest on the laurels and assume we’ll get outside enough, I’m afraid we actually won’t. Plus, the boys are finally getting old enough to understand the tracking, and it motivates them.
However, we’re officially dropping our goal to 850 hours, which will include time spent in indoor pools (I know, gasp!). I won’t be surprised if we make it to 1,000 for our 3rd year in a row. The reason I’m dialing back our hours though is that we currently have punch cards to an indoor play place and a pass to a children’s museum/play place down the road. We’ll be adding a membership to the science center in the spring to give us visiting privileges at other institutions before we go on vacation. And, all those indoor activities are good for my kids too. They are going to outgrow these indoor play places soon, so for this year, I’m recognizing it as a season where we might be indoors a little more. I want to enjoy those places without hustling out to play on playgrounds with headlamps. Ok, I exaggerate, but sometimes it can be easy to get lost in tracking the hours, and I want to alleviate that pressure. At the same time, as I said, I wouldn’t be surprised if we get to 1,000 hours because the kids also got amusement park season passes for Christmas, and we plan to get a pool membership for the summer.
It’s interesting to note that thought we made it to 1,000 hours, we failed in nearly all our outdoor subgoals last year:
Playground hop a month – nope
10 of the library hikes – nope, just 4
Hiking the entire Northwest trail – nope
So, what are our subgoals this year. Well, we’re going to sort of try for them again…
12 playground hops, but this modification takes into account that we might not get any in for January but 4 in March.
10 of the library hikes. I just need to plan these better. And, many of these have playgrounds, so….
60 miles on trails for the boys. We’re not going to limit ourselves to one trail. And, we’re not necessarily going to do all 60 miles as a family. I may have them out for some library hikes that Mark doesn’t join us for, and he may take them to his favorite nature trail while I stay home to edit. But, I do hope we do many of them as a family. And, I hope by the end of the summer, we’re doing some biking together.
Finally, and this is probably the hardest, most ambitious one. Even though we’re cutting our hours, I don’t want to miss more than 36 days outside for the year. That means we might need to be more intentional to take a quick walk at lunch time or to burn energy for 30 minutes at a playground even when we have a busy day of errands. And, like I said, it’s not good that we’ve already burned up 14 days as of when I’m writing this, so perhaps this goal is too ambitious, but I’m going to leave it written down to see what happens.
Two of my favorite Facebook cycles are Easter family photos and end-of-year book recommendations. The Easter photos are so fresh and full of life, taken in the promise of spring. The kids have gotten taller, and often my mom friends are in front of the camera instead of behind it. And, the end-of-year book recommendations let me peek into the minds and interests of people I respect. They push books to the top of my TBR list that might otherwise languish on there and lead me to new books that I might have not considered.
In that great spirit of spurring each other on to good reading, here are some of my top highlights from 2023. I do have a Goodreads account if anyone is curious to see the other books I read because there wasn’t room here to mention all the ones worthy of reading.
First, let me say it was a really good year for non-fiction for me. I happened across quite a few books that were delightful to read, the kind of non-fiction that flies by, sometimes with me even wanting to binge chapters of these books when more often my approach to non-fiction is slow and steady, one chapter at a time.
Gentle and Lowly by Dane Ortlund. I highly, highly recommend this book. It was not fluffy Christian growth material. It dives into the works of theologians of the past and makes theological arguments, but it doesn’t read like a stuffy theological text. The tone felt much like J. I. Packer or Tozer to me. The book itself makes an argument that Jesus’ heart towards us is one of overwhelming mercy and grace, characteristics shown in even greater abundance as he reaches towards us in our sin and struggle. Particularly interesting are chapters that backtrack into the Old Testament in anticipation of the common argument that surely Jesus’ grace cannot be reconciled with the God of wrath and harsh judgement that people perceive in the New Testament. If I had to pick a word to describe the book, I would use REST. It was a breath of fresh air to be reminded of how deep the love of my Savior runs.
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals by Oliver Burkeman This is NOT the typical time management tome. Instead, it encourages the perspective that as finite beings we have only a limited amount of time to use. We also have to do lists that will never, ever be completed. While spelling out these two realities, it encourages a course of action to ensure our time is going where we won’t regret spending it. It’s not about cramming more things into life; it’s about deciding what to keep. I listened to this in audio version, and I’d really like to buy a copy, so I can reread it with a pen in hand to underline the insights that are important.
The Common Rule: Habits of Purpose in an Age of Distraction by Justin Whitmel Early – I pulled this one out of our Little Free Library down the street, then almost passed on reading it when I glanced at the table of contents. I didn’t want to read a prescriptive book on 8 habits that someone else happened to find helpful. But, others recommended the author, so I cracked it open. Obviously, since it’s on this list, I’m glad I did. Even if someone decides not to adopt all 8 of the suggested habits in the book, it is 100% worth reading. What he says about habit alone is insightful: “Because time is the currency of our purpose, habits are how we get our hands on our purpose.” He talks of not initiating habits for self-improvement but so we can live lives of beauty in service to others. I don’t plan to immediately implement all 8 habits, but I can’t say that any of the 8 are not worth pursuing. His writing style is engaging, and even though I told myself that my main reading goal this year is to try to focus on reading through what’s already on my shelves, Early’s other book Habits of the Household is probably one that I’ll go out to get pretty soon. So much for focusing on the already existing shelves…
The Enchanted Hour: The Miraculous Power of Reading Aloud in an Age of Distraction by Meghan Cox Gurdon – This is an argument for reading aloud to your children as broadly, as often, and for as long as possible. If you’re already convinced that you should do that, read this book. You’ll feel a kindred spirit cheering you along. If you’re not convinced that you should do that or are having a hard time motivating yourself to find the time to do it, read this book. She cites compelling brain and educational research, but it’s wrapped in her endearing own anecdotes and a truly lovely writing style.
Ok, on to two memoirs that I really enjoyed.
Surprised by Oxford by Carolyn Weber. If the person who left this on the share table at mom’s group is reading this, thank you. It was a book that left me sitting in lukewarm bathwater late at night a few times and a tiny bit sleep deprived grumpy in the morning because it incited a few just one more (or two more) chapters type of binge read situation. I knew I should close the book and go to bed but didn’t want to. Weber also wrote a book on moving into marriage and parenthood and another on living in the present. And, this does not bode well at all for my goal of reading books I already have…
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba – I, admittedly, did get a tiny bit mired down in the technical details of this book, but overall, I was in awe of how one boy in Africa overcame adversity that I cannot even stretch my mind to imagine and taught himself the skills necessary to create a windmill that provided electricity and a better standard of living for many people. It was also a somewhat convicting read to realize how I have so much but often contribute and persevere so little.
And, now for one fiction recommendation.
Jefferson’s Sons by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley – This book is a fictionalized account of the children that Thomas Jefferson had with Sally Hemings. It’s a young adult novel and does not go into overly graphic detail about the beatings or poor living conditions that slaves had to endure. But, in many ways, it was the most heart wrenching portrayal of slavery that I’ve read or watched. The way Bradley explored the inequities and powerless position of enslaved people through following the character arcs of two children who were preparing to one day live free and pass as white and one who knew he could not and the way she contrasted their childhood “privileges” relative to the others enslaved with them brought to light so many injustices that I found myself literally feeling sick a few times. Ezra and I certainly read our books about Thomas Jefferson a bit differently after that, and this is a book that I plan to have the boys read as part of our history curriculum as they get older. I also recommend Bradley’s World War II based young adult books The War that Saved My Life and The War I Finally Won, but Jefferson’s Sons was the one that impacted me the most powerfully.
And, last, here’s a few shout outs that won’t be on my Goodreads account because I don’t record the children’s books I listen to with Ezra, but we have been loving the Little House on the Prairie series (with some conversations to address some racial tensions and situations that surface) and Beverly Cleary’s Ramona series (with the exception of Ramona’s World, which I did not care for). I never thought I’d let an audio book narrator get first dibs on introducing Little House to my kids, but we have enjoyed the audio versions. Our curriculum incorporates Little House in the Big Woods, so I plan to pull out my vintage yellow covered versions for the reread. And, let me tell you, the Little House books strike very differently when you’re an adult. I am flabbergasted at the hardships that Ma endured and really wish she had written some journals that were published. I’m pretty sure I was driving white-knuckled the day that the prairie fires swept tumbleweeds of fire towards the Ingalls’ house. And, the Ramona books read differently when you’re an adult too. I think I have laughed out loud at least once in every book. Beverly Cleary has a magical way of capturing the essence of childhood, and seeing how the poor Quimbys endure Ramona’s shenanigans makes me laugh. I even find heart softening a bit toward my kiddos on bad days because Cleary offers a brilliantly soft reminder that it can be tough to be a kid growing up in a world full of grown up rules and whims.
And, there you have it, some of the books I enjoyed most in 2023. I’ve been enjoying gleaning some recommendations from others so I can continue to break my faux resolution to not get more books until I read my shelves down to a manageable level.
Ryker, you’re 3! You’ve been waiting for this day and practicing holding up three fingers (that’s a hard one) for awhile now. You continue to be both a fighter and a lover all wrapped into one rough and tumble little boy.
In the past couple of months, your language skills took a leap, and now you fluently speak in paragraphs. Sometimes you narrate entire sections of your life for whoever might be listening, and you don’t even really care if no one is listening. Well, you do sometimes care. You’ll repeat some things over and over again until someone acknowledges you. It makes Ezra so angry, but your dad and I just exchange a knowing look and explain to Ezra that he did the exact same thing when he was your age.
Your contribution to stories can sometimes be so hilarious. Recently Grandmom and Granddad took you to the caverns. You were terrified of the dark, and Granddad had to take you out of cavern before the tour was over. When we came to pick you up from their house, you and Granddad were tag teaming the telling of the story, and when he told us he took you out of the cavern, you got super earnest, held out your hand with one finger up, and exclaimed, “And then I was saved!” It’s not just what you say but the conviction and zeal that you say it with that makes you such a great storyteller. We also love how you often punctuate what you tell us with an “oy, oy, oy!!” You are so funny! (Side note: We have our own oy, oy, oy moment just after the cavern. You kept fussing and saying you did not want to go to a program at a log cabin. I wondered why until I figured out you thought we were going to a log cavern instead of a log cabin. Once that was cleared up, you were fine.)
You continue to share a special affinity with dirt and mud. I have pretty much fully given in to this and embraced this as part of our lives. This spring, Daddy dug up what will eventually be a flower bed for me, but for now, it will be a mud kitchen and digging pit all summer for you. I don’t have the heart to kick you out of the garden, and to be honest, my life if easier if I know I can put you outside where you have a place to happily dig and move dirt. You stay at it for so long. We pretty much always strip your pants off at the door when you come inside.
You are quite good at arts and crafts for a kiddo your age. When you draw animals, their legs attach to their bodies, which seems somewhat advanced. You’re also pretty decent at using scissors. If I give you a piece of paper and some scissors, you stay busy for quite some time. You haven’t quite reached mastery with the ABC song, but you’re nearly there. You have some good chunks of it memorized. You are, for sure, obsessed with the letter R. When you hear it, you are quick to inform us “Two Rs in my name!” You can also spell your name. When Ezra does school, you’re hot or cold. Either you’re right on the couch next to us, or you are rolling around on the floor screaming. Ok, sometimes you do drift off to play peacefully, but we’re definitely still finding a rhythm. I have a feeling that over the course of this next year, you’ll start to ask for your own pages for school since you already do a pretty good job with simple matching pages.
Lest you someday try to guilt your own children with these letters, trying to convince them you were perfection itself, I do have to say that you do have a persistent streak in you that sometimes manifests as downright stubborn. You’ve recently graduated to threenager level tantrums, and they are not pleasant, and they are long. This afternoon you writhed in the grass for at least a good 30 minutes because I wouldn’t let you into the garden until you changed into nice pants…pants that I had in my hand. I am dreading that part of the next year a bit. Your brother was quite the threenager himself, and you watched that and picked up some unsavory advice.
You are certainly a force to be reckoned with. A few times we’ve been informed after your church class that you’ve been a bit ornery with other kids, and I don’t doubt it. I’ve seen you plant your feet, give a good stiff arm, and then a command. A few months ago, it was just “Stop!” Now, it’s sometimes a lecture coupled with the indictment that the object of your wrath is “always bad.” Sigh. But, if I look on the plus side, I can say that as you age a bit and your brain has a more logical bent, people who have you in their circle will be blessed indeed because I have a feeling you will be a staunch defender of your friends. You have the potential to be a truth-teller in people’s lives.
And, you also have a very, very sweet side. When you say, “Yay! You did it!” that is first-rate cheerleading. A person could go a good while on one of your compliments. As feisty as you can be, you also have a sweet heart and are (fairly) quick to apologize. And, you are spiritually sensitive in a way that blesses my heart. As you first started learning the song “Jesus Loves Me,” I never got tired of the way you would perk up and exclaim, “Jesus loves Ryker?!?” Yes, baby, Jesus loves you. And, I love when you clasp your hands together to pray and just say, “Jesus loves me.” I mean, sometimes, that is prayer enough, right? I really do wish I could bottle up your sweet dinnertime prayers and keep them forever from the first grin when we tell you it’s your turn to pray to the last little amen.
There’s not really one overriding passion that you have. With your brother is was trucks, trucks, and more trucks. You had a pretty prolonged pirate phase this year and a fascination with trains. But, overall, you have this sweet ability to enjoy things as they come your way. I love that lately as you reflect on something, you will say, “That was good!” or “That was fun!” And, I enjoy seeing you get giddy when you enjoy doing something. Lately when it’s time for you to take a bath, daddy will yell, “Ryker, come find me!” And, he hides somewhere in your room. You literally drop everything and go running for the steps… like nothing better could be happening in that moment. I do know that you enjoy riding the tricycle that’s getting too tiny for you, snuggling up against daddy in the recliner at the end of a long day, climbing things that are startlingly high at the playground, floating boats around in a bubble bath, pushing your bubble mower outside, eating ice cream, wrestling with your daddy and your brother, and getting lollipops.
Since the wee morning hours that you came rocketing into the world, you have added a special dynamic to our family. You still have the absolute best smile and belly laugh in the whole wide world. Your enthusiasm over simple things is refreshing, and your wide-eyed earnest storytelling has brought us much joy. Since you’re our last baby, that, of course, brings special pangs into my mama-heart sometimes. You’ve almost outgrown my lap entirely, and that makes me so sad. I have a feeling you’ll still snuggle beside me, but I will miss actually holding you. Today you said “dog” instead of “gog” and almost undid me. Don’t say everything too perfectly, too fast. Please. All the boundary testing in the land of three is not my favorite of developmental stages, so I predict some rough seas ahead, but at the same time, I look forward to seeing you develop over the course of the next year. I look forward to seeing Jesus captivate your heart more. It’s about time to start our gardening season where we can be in the dirt beside you. I enjoy when you help me drag the weeds out and haul them away in your bike. I can’t wait to see how your creativity and curiosity will blossom and what direction they will lead you in. I’m eager to take in more nature trails with you. We can load up our pockets with more rocks and drag some more sticks home. And, we can continue to snuggle and laugh and tell stories together and make some of our own.
Recently I left the kids with my mother-in-law, giving me time to go into the library alone. My original plan was to dash in to quickly collect books we need to continue our unit study of the African continent. However, I gave in to the irresistible lure to amble about the library without needing to hiss “be quiet” incessantly and ask for “walking feet” 8 million times. I meandered, plucking books out and leafing through them, taking pictures of books to check out later. And, in the bliss of this moment, forgetting how challenging parenting is, I checked out a book on simple sewing for kids.
Yes, simple sewing. Ezra has been salivating over my sewing machine and, being denied access to it, has demanded a few times that I get him set up with little hand sewing projects. I’m going to be gut level honest here. This has been excruciating. First, having nothing to do with him personally, I don’t enjoy teaching crafting skills to people. I’m simply not good at it. Second, having everything to do with him personally, sewing is my space. I’m hoping in the very near future to be able to shoo the kids outdoors, then sit in the sunroom sewing while monitoring their activities with panes of glass between us. Sewing feels like it should be my retreat, so when they start to invade that space, eyeing up my thread, running their hands across my fabric, my blood pressure starts to rise.
So, why the heck did I check out a sewing book? Well, I was hoping he’d be intrigued by the simpler, more age appropriate projects (spoiler alert: he thinks he’s too advanced to sew on paper and went straight to the harder projects in the back of the book). I also love him, so in spite of and in tandem with the selfish guarding of my hobby, it does bring me joy to supply him with the means to pursue his interests. And, I also have been reading hat some homeschooling philosophies are very pro-handcraft. I definitely would like to see both boys leaving the house able to sew on their own buttons and repair basic tears. If they carry their interest farther than that, that’s great too. Some of the most beautiful quilts I’ve come across have been designed and sewn by men.
But, as I was stretching burlap into an embroidery hoop, digging out threads, and knotting his thread in such as a way as to make sure it would not slip out of the eye of the needle (because I just cannot summon the patience to rethread a needle every 90 seconds), I felt keenly what the tension of homeschooling is in this season.
I absolutely want to pursue homeschooling the boys. As I consider all the time we can read swinging in the backyard or snuggled up under blankets, I want to extend that time with these kiddos that are growing so quickly. As I anticipate the multi-day field trips we can take to go see where history happened instead of just reading about it, I get excited. Facebook targeted me with a homeschool-themed ad for Williamsburg the other day, and I was positively giddy. I like knowing that we can zip through the lessons when they “get it” and can slow down when they need extra time or want to linger because they are curious. When Ezra backs into a cardboard box and tells me he’s being a warthog, I enjoy instantly connecting with him because together this week we read that warthogs back into their dens, so they can defend themselves with their tusks.
But, I also see the school bus pull up at 8:30. I see those kids take their crazy energy and climb on. I imagine their moms or dads going home to drink hot coffee before embarking on the day. It’s stressful enough in this stage to be setting up routines with the boys in the domains of cleaning our home and maintaining personal hygiene and learning to be respectful. And, it’s doubly tricky to be navigating both those rhythms of life and the boundaries of school. When should we sit down for more formal lessons? How can we push through something that might be boring or a little daunting with sanity and dignity in one piece? Yes, those moments are really tricky in this season because we all know kiddos act differently for their mothers and their teachers in other settings. And, I’m still learning these ropes. Does resistance at school merit the same type of consequence as resistance to cleaning one’s room? It doesn’t feel like it should – at least not usually – but then what? I want to follow his interests and move at his pace while still communicating that sometimes we do what’s hard, we stretch until our brains hurt a little, we discipline ourselves to learn and grow even though we won’t always feel like it.
Usually, I write a post when an end in mind, but there’s not really a tidy ending here. I’m just pondering the tension that a little sewing book, and a five year old, and a piece of stretched burlap revealed. We’re in a season where there is both the joy of having these two curious, intelligent, funny boys existing alongside me as we learn together and the stretching of these two loud, boisterous boys here constantly hovering about, pushing into the boundaries of my hobbies, nudging into the edges of my chores as I try to do them efficiently, and constantly asking for schedule adjustments. And, I’m discovering there is much opportunity for my rough edges to be polished away, so I can in turn try to model grace and good habits. My ears are definitely open if any of you homeschool moms want to weigh in with your school/life balance hacks (though I’m well aware that it’s somewhat a myth that there is a clean line of demarcation). If you found fun ways to incorporate your kids into your hobbies or found you needed to draw boundaries around some, I’d love to hear about it.
How? How? How are you five years old? You’re hardly able to be called a preschooler anymore. You are approaching being 4 feet tall. Yes, that means that in 17 inches, you’ll be looking me right in the eyes.
This has been a year of you becoming so much more independent. You can get yourself dressed in clothing that often matches. You can scrounge up breakfast for yourself. You can make your bed. You are brave enough to walk up to the librarian to ask for help. You can play outside on your own. You do a good job of cleaning up a room (when you’re motivated enough). Daddy has even let you take charge of pulling together a dinner or two. And, I know you’re eager to take on a little more independence. You seem pretty excited that I told you that 5-year-olds have to start hanging up their own laundry. And, you often ask me if there is a grown up project that I have for you to do. By that you mean basically any house cleaning or organizing project other than cleaning up toys. Your eyes just lit up the other day when I asked you to move four big boxes from the living room into the kitchen, so they would be ready to take downstairs. You really had to work hard to heft them through the rooms, but you were so proud that you figured out a way to get the job done. And, I know it probably won’t last forever, but you beg me to let you help me clean the bathrooms, and you do a better job of cleaning the dining room floor than I do.
And, this year you have gotten so brave. When we go to programs, you are eager to answer questions or sing along with the crowd. You had Santa on his toes when you asked questions about the book he was reading at library story time. I see you going to playgrounds and climbing things you wouldn’t have dared to climb last year. And, you on a bike gives me heart palpitations. All of your natural born caution gets thrown to the wind when you are on two wheels. First, I had to watch you speeding around on training wheels, slamming on your coaster brakes so hard I was sure you would launch over your handlebars. I still feel some of the residual shock from the day I unloaded your bike without training wheels at the playground, looked up after getting Ryker settled, and realized that you were taking off on two wheels on your own. And, by the end of that day, you were riding across whole parking lots, down the incline of our cul-de-sac, and even across the grass. Then daddy came home the other day and showed me a video of you popping a little wheelie on your bike. Yikes! It’s fun to see such a spirit of adventure in you, but I’m still glad that in some areas of life you show a little caution.
You still soak up knowledge like a sponge. And, you love reading. You frequently ask for an audiobook in the car, and this year, you have enjoyed listening to the first two books of the Little House series and the Ramona series. But, your true love is non-fiction books. In the non-fiction section of the library, you start tossing books into our bag with wild abandon, and while I can read chapter books to you, you often are ready to transition on to the next activity when I pause. If we’re reading nonfiction though, there is a good chance that you’ll ask me to keep reading. I have treasured the times we’ve spent on the couch this year learning about Ernest Shackleton, rainforests, penguins, deserts, and so many other things. And, I enjoy when you explain things too. I know it will be a deep explanation when you flatten out your hand and hold it sideways straight out from you. Often you bounce your hand sideways down an invisible line of logic as you explain something to me. And, you have really started to advance in both your desire and skill when it comes to drawing and coloring. For the longest time, you despised coloring but now sometimes you choose to color beside me as we wind down the day.
You continue to both delight and frustrate your dad and I with your advanced sense of logic. Sometimes you seem to make things so complicated and drawn out when a simple act of obedience would move life along. But, you’re finely tuned sense of justice and determined way of reasoning through your plans often requires that we slow down, hear you out, make adjustments, make clear boundaries, and make consequences that make sense without rattling you. And we’re not always successful at that, so sometimes everyone is just plain old frustrated. But, then other times, you’ll say something that is so astute and beyond your years that daddy and I will just catch each other’s eyes and smile big smiles as we once again realize how complex you are.
I also have enjoyed watching you and your brother together this year. Certainly not all the time. Sometimes things can get pretty ugly. Have I mentioned that you have an intense need to see justice (as you define it)? That creates some pretty intense expectations of what your brother should be doing and how he should make things up to you when he deviates from your expectations. You’re also really good at making tons of rules that you either don’t communicate or that are too confusing for a two year old. Those things aside though, I have had many moments of really enjoying watching the two of you. You are a natural born teacher, and sometimes the way you try to teach Ryker is so sweet. And sometimes I just crack up laughing when you bark out some rule to him that I’ve asked you to follow a million times. When you’re not fighting, you are so eager to invite him to share time with you. You often take him to your room so the two of you can listen to music together. Or I find you both on your bed looking through books together or sitting shoulder to shoulder to watch a show on TV. And, the truly beautiful thing is that as your imagination has blossomed over this past year, you have drawn Ryker along into imaginary worlds with you. I enjoy being out of your line of sight as the two of you immerse yourself in some imaginary world with you suggesting to him what his next actions could be. It’s so fun to eavesdrop on the little world you two are sharing.
It has been another year of you keeping us on our toes because you continue to be an old soul. You care so deeply about things, observe so keenly the world around you, and react so passionately that I cannot possibly always know what’s going on in your head. You have this insatiable desire to learn that we keep trying to feed. Now, you’ve started to ask me to make you cups of hot tea when I’m making myself a cup. And, as we both choose the flavor of tea that we want and sip at our tea together, I can for a few moments imagine what life will be like as you continue to grow. I can imagine that we’ll sit on the porch together drinking coffee or tea, and we can chat about books we’ve read or things we’re learning. And, you know what, I think you’re a pretty cool kid to know now, and you’re going to be a pretty cool young man to continue to know in the future. You bring so much to our lives as you share your perspective of the world and invite us to play and work alongside you.
We set a goal last year to get our kids outside for 1,000 hours. I wrote a bit about my motivators in another blog post.
When I say we set a goal, it would be more accurate to say that I set a goal and announced it to others who are frequently in our kids’ lives. My announcement was met with some cautions, some indifference, and some doubts. However, one of the beautiful things about this goal is that it morphed from a goal I set into a goal that we pursued. As he increasingly got on board, Mark delighted taking the boys at least once each season to a nearby nature trail that he frequented in his boyhood; he wanted them to see how it changed as the year passed. My mom, who is not the outdoors type, stretched herself and got the boys out to playgrounds on the weekends they visited her. Mark’s mom mindful to track that time spent outside, and at least on one occasion, she spent time putting together puzzles and playing games on the front porch with them when it would have been more pleasant in the air conditioning.
So, did we meet the goal. Yes. Yes, we did!!!! The kids spent 1006 hours outside last year. Any time they were both out, we tracked the time.
Here are a few geeky tracking facts:
The months we spent the least amount of time outside were January and February. We got about 18 hours in each of those months.
We spent the most amount of time outside in June – almost 152 hours.
From May 10 through September 30th, we missed only one day outside, our travel day to Pittsburgh.
Often families make this goal with long camping weekends, but I think we only had one day when we were outside longer than 8 hours. To be sure, we had quite a few 6 and 7 hour days, we mostly just chipped away at the goal, slow and steady.
So, what’s my assessment of the accomplishment? Am I glad I set this goal?
I am beyond glad that we pursued this goal last year. It wasn’t all spring days and magical adventures to be sure, but the struggle was worth it, and the struggle was part of what shaped us. The hours outside did make me less stressed about two noisy boys bouncing off the walls, and they did so much more. To be very specific, and hopefully inspirational, here are some of the benefits of our 1,000 hours outside:
Joy as I watched my kids be kids. By March and April, people were already talking about how brown the boys looked, and that sun-kissed glow made me so happy. It was a tangible reflection of the hours digging in the garden, taking walks, playing at playgrounds and with friends in the backyard, and reading outside.
It cultivated imagination in the boys. I want to be careful about faulty causation here because at the ages of 2 and 4, I think some development of their imagination was bound to happen over the course of the year no matter how we parented. However, when they are outside with less toys and less distractions, it is fun to see what they do. There was the day that they pretended to be evacuating a village after a volcano, an unscripted extension of our homeschool reading and volcano science experiment in the morning. And, was it a little weird, that they were pretending to cook each other as they climbed onto their play slide the other day and turned the dials? Um, yeah… it was a little weird. But, it was also encouraging to see that they could take a basically empty yard and come up with something to do in it. I think that developed after hours and hours and hours of being outside.
It improved our dinner times. When we started this challenge, Ryker was at a rough spot in life as he weaned from afternoon naps, and dinners could be particularly miserable. Eating out in the fresh air with the opportunity to watch the butterflies flit among newly opened flowers, to see people walking past, to wonder if the rain will start blowing hard enough to cause a problem… all of that was so much better than sitting in the stale air of a dining room hanging thick with the tension of getting dinner on the table and the frustrated wails of an exhausted toddler. We ate outside so much I actually bought a new table that fits better on our front porch, and when we said it was dinner time, the boys would go running for the front door not the dining room table.
It shaped our habits. I knew we were changing the day that I asked my mom to meet us at a remote park where we could hike down to an “exploration forest” with the boys. A what?!? I didn’t even know such things existed before this year, and now we were going out of our way to pursue them instead of passing the boys from car to car in a mall parking lot. And, that afternoon was magic. I still smile every time I see the picture of Ryker standing on the edge of the creek bank, pants completely destroyed from sliding through the mud, giant stick in hand, having the time of his life. I still remember us trying to swing on an honest-to-goodness vine swing and discovering, to our utter shock and amazement, that Ezra actually can maintain an indoor voice when we told him we were on the what the trail map labeled as the “quiet walk loop.”
Along with our habits, it shaped our priorities. I read Simplicity Parenting by Kim John Payne this year, and one of the key points is that modern children are overscheduled and overcommitted to structured activities. Having a goal of spending 1,000 hours outside provides a somewhat automatic filter to put up guards against overscheduling and overcommitting. There simply isn’t room to sign up for a million structured activities indoors without missing the goal.
A parenting partnership. We speed through developmental stages as fast as we can adjust to them (sometimes faster than we can adjust), and it was nice to have a simple parenting goal that Mark and I could pursue together. No debating appropriate discipline, no worrying about when to start formal schooling. Just go outside. When in doubt, get out.
Reduced screen time. I knew we were spending too much time on screens prior to this challenge, and I also knew that certain types of programming affected the boys negatively. I want to be clear in saying that we still get screen time in this house. I’m not condemning it wholesale. However, being outside reduced our screen time because we simply were not inside to watch TV very often. During the summer, we had entire days where the TV never even came on while the boys were awake. Seeing what life was like without TV helped us tune in faster to when the boys had too much TV. As the weather turned cooler in November, the boys started getting up before me and figured out how to use the voice remote to turn on the TV. It only took a week before we started putting the remotes out of reach in the morning because we knew the kids in a TV stupor were not our kids at their best, and we nipped it in the bud. Honestly, once we started being outside so often, I noticed the kids asked for TV less often. Their inside toys had become more valuable commodities because they saw them less often.
I learned to slow down (sorta). I’m not going to say that I never get annoyed that we literally hike at a pace of 1 mph. But, when the whole goal is to be outside for 1,000 hours, I can more easily take a deep breath and realize that often we don’t need to hurry to get where we’re going. The perspective shifts to a longer stretch of time rather than the moment.
I felt like I have started to learn to live more in the moment and to plan with what I’m are given. I’m distrustful of my weather app more now than ever. It can say 43 degrees two days in a row, and our outside experiences can be vastly different. One day might be overcast and raw. We are a little relieved to come inside and are thawing out hours later. Another day might be 43 degrees with sun and no breeze stirring, and three hours at the playground could feel amazingly rejuvenating. We might even shed hats and gloves and a layer. Yes, there are days we take a pass and stay inside, but mostly, when I made a commitment to get out there, that commitment helped me learn to be flexible and to improvise with the weather, the mix of kids that are/are not at the playground, the difficulty of the trail, etc.
My perception of good weather has vastly broadened, and the moderate days of spring and fall felt even more glorious than they had in years past.
And, finally, as we pursue the goal this year again, here are some of my subgoals to keep things fresh:
Hike the entire Northwest River Trail. We literally hike at a pace of one mile per hour, so we have no illusions that we’ll do the entire 14 mile trail in a day, but I want us to strategically hike it in sections, so we can find our favorite parts.
Complete at least 10 of the hikes in our library system’s summer hiking challenge. We are so blessed that the libraries in our county and the neighboring 2 counties put together a hiking challenge booklet each year. It’s a fantastic way to learn about new parks, trails, and playgrounds that we might not otherwise visit. One of our friends did way better than we did at these adventures last year, so I plan to join forces with her. Time towards our goal and time with a friend. As long as we keep the fruit snacks and granola bars plentiful, it should be a win-win.
Visit the Shenk’s Ferry Wildflower Preserve. It just sounds amazing, and I want to visit.
Complete one playground hop of at least 3 playgrounds each month. The boys absolutely love the days that we hop from playground to playground to playground. Often we try to find friends who can join us for at least part of the day. This stage of loving playgrounds will be here and gone in the blink of an eye. When the boys look back on their childhood, I hope days abandoned to climbing and jumping and eating packed lunches in a pavilion and looping around bike trails are some of their most vivid memories. Based on recent reading I’ve been doing, one of the most significant parenting challenges in today’s culture is simply protecting childhood, maintaining a semblance of carefree exploration and fun. So, one playground hop a month feels like a tangible gift I can give to my kids.
What do I want to change this year?
I hope to spread the hours more evenly across the span of the year. We had about 3 months last year where we needed to average 5 hours a day outside to hit our goal. We almost burned out at that pace. There were some absolutely beautiful 5, 6, and 7 hour days outside last year, and I hope we have them again this year, but we learned if we are out more than 3.5 to 4 hours, it can be very hard to fit anything else into a day. Bedtime is still between 7 and 8 here, so we don’t catch tons of evening hours outside. Plus, as the humidity rises, my parenting skills go noticeably downhill. I would rather not concentrate our hours in the summer like we did last year.
I want to bring some things that got a little lost last year back into focus. When we started last year, I had established a pretty good routine for getting Bible reading in. Often that did involve letting the boys watch a biblically oriented show or worship DVD while I read. Rushing to get outdoors in the morning changed that routine, and I need it back. I don’t know that I always want them watching a DVD, but somehow my Bible/personal development reading needs to come back and fit into what we’re doing. We also stopped going to library story times. It felt like such a big chunk of time to give up indoors. But, I miss having that in their routine. I want Ryker getting practice sitting still in a group, and I want Ezra to have that interaction with our librarian, so we will be fitting in library story time along with a couple other homeschool activities that will probably carry us inside a little more. I don’t think that means we need to give up on 1,000 hours, but it will mean we have to be intentional, and it will mean that we will have to continue to look at our priorities and rhythms to make sure we’re making appropriate use of our time for this developmental stage.
And, there is it. Kinda in a nutshell, I guess because 1,000 hours is a lot to wrap up. If you’ve read this far, that’s pretty impressive. And, if you’ve read this far and you’re curious about doing this (or some semblance of this) with your family, I’d be happy to share more of our experiences. Just send a note, leave a comment.
We adopted a goal back in January of spending 1,000 hours outside with our kids this year. And, I meant to write a post about why we were doing it in January or February. Here we are though in an August heat wave, clawing our way towards 600 hours, and I guess there is no time like the present to share a little bit about why this indoor loving mom decided to tackle this goal.
Before I get into why we’re trying to spend 1,000 hours outside, I’ll take just a second to explain the larger movement this is tied to. The 1,000 hours outside organization/movement/whatever you want to call it was formed to attempt to get families to “match nature time with screen time.” They argue that a significant portion of the 1,200 annual hours (on average) that kids spend on screens should be spent outdoors instead. There is a whole podcast that I’ve never even listened to because I keep forgetting to pull it up, but I did join the Facebook group. There are no formal rule for what counts as time outside, and there are no prizes for achieving the goal.
The first driving reason behind me adopting the 1,000 hours goal waas simple. Social media peer pressure… peer pressure probably isn’t the right word for it though. It was more like social media inspiration. I saw a few of the people in my Facebook circle posting about their progress through the 1,000 hours outside challenge, and it made me curious.
Second, the 1,000 books before kindergarten challenge had provided a helpful accountability structure for our family. We set a goal of 1,000 unique book before kindergarten, so the goal kept nudging me back to the library to round up fresh stacks of books. Ezra reached his goal last fall, and I believe that since we were pursuing the goal, he was exposed to a broader variety of texts than he would have been otherwise. I also saw that goal change our family culture and rhythms. It’s not unusual to read a book or two at the table after meals. We have “reading parties” regularly, and though they sound like a crazy amount of effort, they are literally just me grabbing a stack of books and sitting down with the two boys. I figured calling it a party wouldn’t hurt anything. So even though 1,000 hours outside is more daunting, this isn’t our first rodeo of counting to 1,000.
Third, and probably subconsciously, I gravitated towards being outdoors as a way to alleviate some of the decision fatigue that I was facing due to Covid. By late fall/winter of last year, I was starting to feel frequent low-grade anxiety about the constant risk analysis I felt forced to do. Can we go to this museum? Should we go to library story time? When can we get back to church? Maybe I was subconsciously trying to steer us towards an outside goal that could help make up for all that we were missing indoors due to restrictions or a level of discomfort about participating.
Finally, I think what really drove me to the goal was desperation. Last year, parenting was not easy for me. If you asked me to describe the year in one word, it would be relentless. It just felt like we were on a wheel that constantly spun. When Ryker was a newborn and Ezra was 2, I expected to muck around for a season in sleep deprivation and the strain of being constantly needed. However, I lulled myself into a false belief that the season would pass within a year and was absolutely blindsided by how difficult it was to have a 1 and 3 year old. Ryker experienced several months of being intensely clingy; I think his method of assuaging frustration that he could not keep up with his brother was to demand that I be at his side to entertain him or help him keep up. And Ezra was not a pleasant 3 year old. I love him fiercely, so I hate to say that, but if I’m telling the truth, there it is. Big, big feelings and constant boundary pushing made it an exhausting year. I told someone the other day that it feels like we are finally shifting from having good moments in the middle of bad days to bad moments in the middle of good days. And, all of this angst and pressure was in the context of me not feeling the freedom to go out as often as I wanted to and having nearly all my contact with other moms come in the form of Zoom or Voxer with kids underfoot and interrupting those conversations. I needed something to try to shock our family routine into a healthier rhythm, and I hoped that more time outside would help.
And, here we are 600 hours later, feeling positive about that goal we set (and just a tad distressed by this heat wave). I’ll try in a post soon to talk about what that goal has done for our family.
You’re two. How on earth did that happen so quickly? Today we officially celebrated, but to be honest, I’ve been thinking of you as almost 2 for a couple months now. You are so fiercely independent about so many things. When we go on walks, you will stand at a corner and protest if I don’t follow your tugs on my hand while you say, “Dis way. Dis way.” A couple times now you’ve nearly put your own pants on. (You’re just turning two!) You eat in a regular chair at the dining table because you insisted that you wanted to be out of your toddler chair. You are not hesitant about telling us that you want a bottle (man, we need to get you to give that up) and a nap. You’re well-acquainted with the word, “Me” as you snatch something, and when I get you food, you’ll often say “big!” because you don’t want me to cut it into pieces for you.
Your vocabulary has continued to expand. Much of what you say revolves around commands, “Here, come, look, up, play, eat, dinner.” Taking care of you is mostly straightforward because whenever it’s possible, you make it known what you want. I say straightforward but not necessarily easy because if you don’t get what you want, you’re sure to tell us that too. You’ve already started to string together 3-4 word sentences. I love when you think something is a good idea because you bracket it between an oooh and a uh-huh with a headshake. So, if we say it’s time for a bath and that it’s bubble night, we hear, “Ooohh, bubble, uh-huh.”
You’ll soon hit 400 unique books read in our quest to read 1,000 books before you get into kindergarten. It hasn’t been difficult to get you to read that many books. You’ll easily sit through 2 or 3 each night at bedtime. The other day at breakfast, we read 5 books with you asking for more, more, more. My favorite book to read to you is We’re Going on a Bear Hunt. You’ll say “oh-no” along with me or make the various noises for splashing through the river or squelching through the mud. You’re showing quite a bit of interest in scribbling on paper and like to use chalk to draw on the chalkboard in the toy room. Your dad and I had a good laugh the other day. We kept asking you to draw things, and you would draw one line then point to it and say whatever we had asked you to draw. So, I would say, Ryker, draw a car.” You’d turn all your focus to the board, swipe downward with the chalk, and say “car.” Then you’d look at us to tell you what to draw next. You had the most adorable collection of lines I’ve ever seen when you were done. And, you’re an absolute whiz kid when it comes to putting together chunky puzzles with about 10 shapes. You’ve actually gotten so good that you’re a little bored with them. Pretty much all the baby toys will be leaving for the consignment sale in April. Thanks to your brother’s influence, you prefer to play with the tractors and big kid trucks. You also enjoy your little people toys. In fact, you’re a little obsessed with people for any toy. If you’re driving the play trucks, you take off running for your trains yelling “people, people” because you know the people that go with the train set are small enough to fit in most of our tractors and toy trucks.
You continue to love the outdoors, especially dirt. All the dirt. I, honestly, am not sure how you can manage to get so filthy in such a short amount of time. I finally got you a mud suit, so I can zip you into it and set you free without worrying about you ruining all your clothing. The other day I was outside removing dried up foliage from our flower beds. You were rolling down the hill, through the dirt, then jumping off the side of the flower beds, then crawling back up the hill. The sheer joy of moving around with nature brushing up against you makes your heart happy.
I do love how much joy exudes from you. You have the absolute best smile and laugh. You don’t just smile with your mouth. Your eyes shine and crinkle up at the side. And your belly laugh is irresistible. You belly laugh when daddy plays “smoosh” with you by putting you on your back on the floor and pretending to squish you. You belly laugh when we play “hug machine” and pick you up and squeeze you hard while saying “Huuuug” and then tickling your ribs while we say “machine!” And you beg us for “more.” Recently, you learned a skip-walk type of step. You’ll take off bouncing along in your little skip-walk, totally carefree and loving life.
You are such a sweetheart. After daddy wipes your hands and face at dinner, he says, “Look at me. Are you cute?” When you look up, he plants a loud, long kiss on your forehead. I see a grin take over your whole face, and before he ends one kiss, you are demanding, “More. More.” You’ve expanded the ritual now by getting down from your highchair to come over to me and say “Kiss. Kiss.” And you’ll also go over to Ezra to ask for a kiss. You still thrive on snuggles with us and enjoy ending the day sitting in daddy’s lap to watch TV. One of the shows that you’ll often demand now is Bill Nye the Science Guy. I love your obsession with couch blankets. You’ll insist on wiggling under the blanket with me and enjoy it when we throw a blanket on you if you’re sitting independently on the couch. When Ezra cries, you will run over to him, stand very close, and gently pat him with your hand. It is one of the sweetest things I have ever seen.
And, at the same time that you are such a sweetheart, you are so rough and tumble. Gas and poop already amuse you… You would jump from the ottoman to the couch all the time if we deemed it an appropriate game. I never have to worry much about you getting beat up by your brother because you’ve already hit him several times. If you fall down or off of something, you usually bounce right back up. The other day, you and Ezra were walking around with pillowcases on your heads because … well, I don’t really know why. Though your dad and I thought it was not the best idea, we let it play out a bit. You would bump into something, murmur “ow” under the pillowcase, and then just keep going. I love when you make a muscle. You used to shrug your shoulders up to your ears as your version of making a muscle, which was adorable. Now you’ll make a muscle and “grrrr.”
Your resilience and persistence should assist you greatly in life. And your smile and charm and naturally affectionate nature make you a joy to be around. Right now, you are on the dividing line between baby and big boy. We ask you if you’re a big boy, and you’ll say, “No, baby.” Yet, you love to show us your muscles and insist your food is “big.” You’re going to be absolutely devastated when we take away your bottles, yet you’ll sit at the table in a regular chair and drink from a regular cup in one hand. I feel that same tug of war between wanting you to be a baby and a big boy. When I pull you into my lap in the evening and read to you before bed, I find myself wanting these days to never end. When I change another diaper or pack another diaper bag or wrestle another 5-point car seat harness, I cheer each day you grow. When I see you skipping carefree around the room, or you turn and smile your impish smile, or you rush over and yell “picture, picture” in such an unrestrained way, I want you to stay little forever, free from worry and full of confidence. At the end of the day, even if both of us want to hang on to you being a baby just a little longer, I know you’re going to forge ahead. Progress is an irresistible force in you. You see something that you want to do, and you learn to do it. You direct your whole will toward it and focus your attention on the goal. And, as you increasingly embrace being a big boy, I will continue to wait with eager anticipation to see where your exuberance and determination will take you.
Last year, I made a checklist for our fridge that contained goals for weekly and monthly practices that I felt would establish healthy rhythms in our home. Some of those goals I fell miserably short on, especially drinking water and blogging and sewing and managing the paperwork flow into our house. I also tried to plan in two hours of project-oriented type tasks, and that didn’t work for me. I found myself not accomplishing those tasks in the course of the week. Even though I broke them into 15 minute to 1 hour chunks of time, I just would keep looking at the list and putting it off until tomorrow. I bought a planner this year that has 3 lines for daily priorities. I plan to use the day-by-day approach instead to see if that motivates me more, and I figure that most days, 1 of those 3 priorities will be a microtask that keeps the house running smoother. It will be things like, wipe down the bathroom sinks, wash the back window, get the crumbs out of the air fryer before it burns the house down. Stuff like that.
The rhythms that I fell short on establishing last year were ones I still feel are healthy, so with the exception of the goal I set last year for spending intentional time with Ezra, I’m carrying over all the rhythms to this year. I took the intentional time with Ezra off the list because we’ve semi-officially embarked on our homeschool adventure, so that is a whole endeavor to itself. I also had the goal of two nights to myself last year; I officially cut that to one. But that’s harsher than it sounds because I kept the goals of blogging 3 times a month and sewing twice. If those happen in the evening, that is time to myself. There is also a community food bank I want to volunteer at, and it’s likely that I’ll be putting in those hours at least one evening/night a week. I know that’s not exactly an even swap for a relaxing night to myself, but I do get about an hour alone in the car there and back, and if you’re a mom, you know that can be amazing. And, after volunteering, I can shop in the organization’s deeply discounted grocery store, so it’s like a little bargain hunting adventure that puts food on our table.
In addition to tweaking last year’s rhythms, I added to challenges for this year.
We’ll be doing the 1000 Hours Outside challenge. Two of my Facebook friends posted periodically about it last year, and I know that I’m not good at getting the boys outside. Even on marginally nice days or days when Ezra runs over asking to go out with his friends, I dodge the outdoors. But, I have discovered that even when they are being loud outside, their voices don’t reverberate off the walls like they do when we’re inside. And, my kids are LOUD. And, I remember one of our mom’s group speakers telling us that when everyone is grumpy or stressed, outside is the answer. I find myself often grumpy or stressed lately, so it’s outside we go. We’ve had success with the 1,000 books before kindergarten program. Ezra completed his 1,000 books this fall. But, this 1,000 hours is definitely more time consuming and more outside my comfort zone. Nonetheless, I really feel like getting outside more could help our family on multiple levels.
This year, I plan to put the finishing touches on a 26(ish) week meal rotation for us that covers dinners. It’s already complete in its rough draft form. I just need to fill in some empty spots left by recipes that flopped and make sure the grocery lists that I built into it are complete. Additionally, I have a goal to make one intentionally planned, better than average cooked breakfast or lunch per week. We eat tons of cereal and toast for breakfast, and lunch runs the gamut from cheese and crackers to peanut butter and honey sandwiches. Ezra would just live on those if I let him, but Ryker and I get bored. Now that the dinner rotation is worked out (mostly), I want to start having more breakfast casseroles or crock pots of soup. This will flesh out the breakfast and lunch portions of the meal planning. One of the mom jobs that I loathe is putting together the grocery list. It often happens late at night, and it feels like such a never-ending, decision-intensive task. The more I can automate it, the better. With homeschool planning on the horizon and editing and consignment work already on my plate in the evenings, I’d definitely love to avoid devoting several evenings a year to planning our meals. And, I’m doing the planning in such as way at to pretty much allow it to carry forward from year to year, tweaking as needed to remove foods we’re tired of or to add new discoveries. Once it’s fully tweaked, the base of our grocery lists will be built into the meal plans.
One of my goals from last year that worked out really well was establishing a morning reading time, usually to read the Bible or something from the stack of 12 book I choose to read each year. When our schedule got thrown off and I missed that time for just a couple days in a row, I did start to feel myself getting out of sorts. This year, I want to work in a Bible story or devotion for the kids either before or after that time (mostly for Ezra). Right now, if they want to watch TV while I read, I usually make them watch one of our Christian-based DVDs, but I want to do something more interactive and something that primes them to have their own devotional time later in life. Also, I plan to build intentional prayer time in now that I’ve established the habit of carving out time for growth and reflection.
Finally, I want to write 2 physical notes a month to people. They could be thank you notes or encouragement or could be a bouquet that we drop off on someone’s porch. It will feel kind of weird because that sort of thing seems to be rarely done these days, but I have a friend who sent just a “thanks for being a friend. I’m glad we’re friends note” this year. It was a huge blessing. I can also recall two different times over the past couple years when friends just dropped stuff on our porch. They didn’t visit; they just dropped and texted to say the stuff was there. I remember on one day in particular, my friend was being the hands and feet of Jesus because her note and encouragement so clearly showed that God was seeing me on a rough day. Because this type of thing is such a rare practice, it’s also a deeply meaningful practice. I also think this will dovetail nicely with my goal to pray more too because as I think about who to write to or surprise, I can be thinking about who to pray for. I hope that as I try to establish this rhythm God takes that goal and uses me to tangibly make his presence known at just the right time.
yet what will be... 