Mo Shuile Togam Suas

I had one of those wrenching mom-decisions this morning.  Sean had stayed home from school yesterday (Wednesday) after getting sick Tuesday afternoon.   This morning, he still looked and felt sick –  had some abdominal pains.   No fever, no real exterior symptoms.  So I sent him off on the bus.

I called the doctor and scheduled an appointment for 10 am.   The doctor’s going to refer him to a GI specialist (actually, Aidan’s very GI doctor, so that’s nice).   She prescribed a muscle relaxant for the pain.

Kevin and I dropped Sean back off at school.   Sean obviously didn’t want to go.

I went to the Post Office and when I came back I got a call from the school office, from a lady I know who goes to our church and is a friend.  She said Sean was in the nurse’s office sleeping.   He had left Geometry complaining of dizziness and stomach pain.   She asked if I wanted her to put him on the early school bus but I said I’d pick him up and save him the 50 minutes of lurching and loudness.

So Kevin and I picked up our sleepy, slow moving teenage son in the van.  Meanwhile, Aidan, who was in the car, was heating up with a temperature.  He seems to have the cold that Sean had last week.

I don’t know — I told our friend at the school that I hated making those judgment calls.   You just don’t have to do that as a homeschooler.  You can let the kid have a day off.   I remember that was one of my reasons for starting homeschooling.  Should I support Liam’s teacher when I thought she was wrong? (for example, when she kept him in at recess because he had been too slow at finishing his class work?) Should I spend two hours in the evening with him helping him to complete homework that was essentially busywork, or should I just slough it off in order to have a bit of family time and thus send the message that homework wasn’t important?

Well, I did ask the doctor what to do when Sean got these episodes — they seem to hit about monthly — and she validated my instinct to keep him at home.  I abrogated that instinct today and look what happened.  But  then, I don’t always want to be the one encouraging him to take it easy, either.  Sigh.

I think if he has to stay home tomorrow though, the school staff won’t be surprised.

I feel discontented. … everything seems to have a layer of dust on top of it, including my psyche. Probably it means I have been on the computer too much, but I think there’s more to it than that. Incipient spring, perhaps? Anyway, since it’s April maybe a good time for a poem by Richard Wilbur, hat tip to Laudator Temporis Acti:

The air was soft, the ground still cold.
In the dull pasture where I strolled
Was something I could not believe.
Dead grass appeared to slide and heave,
Though still too frozen-flat to stir,
And rocks to twitch, and all to blur.
What was this rippling of the land?
Was matter getting out of hand
And making free with natural law?
I stopped and blinked, and then I saw
A fact as eerie as a dream,
There was a subtle flood of steam
Moving upon the face of things.
It came from standing pools and springs
And what of snow was still around;
It came of winter’s giving ground
So that the freeze was coming out,
As when a set mind, blessed by doubt,
Relaxes into mother-wit.
Flowers, I said, will come of it.

It seems that every April I start thinking of blogging the days on here again.   Anyway, here, right on schedule. .. literally, to the day.   Let’s see if I can do this with Aidan sitting on my lap saying “Let’s head out the door!”  My husband Kevin and I have revived our old habit of going for daily walks pushing Aidan in his purple wheelchair, and it only takes Aidan two days to solidify a pleasing custom into a habit.  (He’s also trying to read bits of this post which is a nice anniversary indication of progress, since last year he wasn’t reading at all).   But here are some things that are the same:

• Just like last year, we still have grungy snow on the ground.
• Just like last year, I am starting to think about planning for next year.
• Just like last year, I am aiming to end our Charlotte Mason term in early June.

Let me write out a typical day now as a souvenir for next April.

I’ve been waking up at 5:30 am recently, which is frustrating because my alarm is set to go off at 6 am.    It always feels too cold to get up right away but half an hour isn’t really long enough to go back to sleep.  I usually do anyway, though.   Then I have to drag myself up at 6:15.

Then I have a routine which thankfully is almost completely automatic.    I get dressed, say morning prayers, make coffee, fill Sean’s water bottle, feed the dog, empty the dishwasher, start a fire, make a protein drink, wake up Sean to drink it, start some laundry and sometimes, if Aidan’s awake, get breakfast for him.

Then I drive Sean to the bus stop.  But after this Easter break he will be walking — the drive was because of all the snow behind our house.   I can’t justify it when he only has to walk 1/10th of a mile down a pleasant hill in the spring.  However, it will be a little sad because you know, those interventions are “collecting rituals“   Sometimes the few minutes in the warm car were the times when he’d mention something about his essentially mysterious days that he wouldn’t have mentioned otherwise.

After that I WAS riding the exercycle and reading a book for 30 minutes.  I got derailed a couple of weeks ago and haven’t started it up again.   Now I usually hang out on the computer with my coffee while Aidan watches a video, usually Veggie Tales, but recently Toy Story (we borrowed it from the library and he loves it).

Then I make breakfast and we start the day reading — I read to Kieron in history and religion in front of the fire.   The little ones flow in and out among this, mostly in.     He narrates.   I give him something for language arts — either copywork, or Latin, or grammar.    This takes a little over an hour usually.   Then he has a break.   Fairly often he takes the little ones outside to sled for a couple of hours.   I usually catch up a bit around the house, talk to Kevin or one of the older kids, or whatever.

At lunch I usually read to Paddy.   Kieron  is supposed to read some more on his own and do math after lunch.   He usually does the math, but has had trouble getting around to the reading.     He reads plenty on his own but the schoolbooks are more challenging to him, I think, not as intrinsically interesting.

Then usually I rest a bit and go for a walk with Kevin, and make another pot of coffee, then start dinner in time for when Sean comes home.  He has been doing track so he is not home till 6:30 these days, then he takes a shower and does his homework, then reads or talks to his siblings or watches a movie until bedtime.

I read some more to Paddy and then am usually out myself close to ten.  I really need more than 8 hours of sleep.

I suppose there are a lot of little incidentals that don’t come up in that sketch of a typical day.   Recently I’ve been decluttering and organizing so that takes up some time.    And sometimes there are errands to run.

Sean said the other day that “school wasn’t so bad if he didn’t have to get up so early.”  I was surprised by that since usually he says how much he dislikes school.    Hopefully that’s not a bad sign.   Anyway, summer vacation is coming up fast and then we’ll be into football season, which is definitely the main reason he is putting himself through all those early mornings.

When you think your car is locking and refusing to start, make sure you are using the right key to start it with.

I’m sure there are some homeschooling parallels!

I drafted two posts on here — on therapy, and on pharmacies — that turned out to belong to my other blog at Sierra Highlands.   Now I have to get off the computer so I don’t spoil the momentum of my whole day.   But I am trying to think of a way to bring more little details of homeschooling life over here.   I do this blog-juggling a lot.   Partly it is because when I am writing, I am usually writing a LOT, too much for one blog to cope with.   But then there’s times when I can’t think of anything to say.    Then I wonder why I have so many blogs at all when I can’t even keep ONE active.   Odd balancing act, but I’m learning to go with my intuition and just hope it isn’t too disruptive to people who might actually be trying to follow one or more of my blogs.

I am TRYING to keep the posts short on this blog, so when a post gets really long I usually move it over.   So that’s one distinction.

Lent seems to silence me — wonder why that would be?  I haven’t been blogging much at all.

Snowy today — the sky is like a downy blanket.   At 6:30 I was out pushing great drifts of snow from the Durango’s top and sides.   Fortunately the plow got to our driveway so that I could drive out and get Sean to the bus stop.  There was no place to park the car so I drove around a bit until it was time to drop him off.    He doesn’t think there will be track today.

Aidan got up when I did, ate some penne from last night’s dinner, went in the car with us and then crawled back into bed and is fast asleep again.     With both the little guys asleep, the house has a deep hush.  I suppose eventually it will be like that all the time, but right now it’s rare.

I spent an hour yesterday cleaning downstairs since the real estate guy is coming by this morning.   It sure looks nice when it’s cleaned.

Homeschool has been going well — using Ambleside pretty much as straight as I can.

Now both the little ones are awake.

It’s pouring outside and has been all through the night.  So glad it isn’t more snow.   I can manage rain just fine.   I ran out last night at about 11 pm and covered the firewood still in the driveway.   That’s when I knew that I’d better keep up my exercising. (I’ve been riding on the stationary bike for 30 minutes a day).  Formerly I wouldn’t have been able to make myself run outside and scramble around a soaked pile of logs with tarps.

Sean was rather sad yesterday about returning to school today and his sorrow affected my mood.   He asked about independent study.   So hard to know how to approach this type of difficulty.

I just finished reading Re-Enchantment, a book about a family who moves to California and ends up homeschooling their two children.   The book is tinged with fantasy — for example, the school is a bit like 21st century Roald Dahl with a California overlay.    It wasn’t what I’d call a GOOD book, in the literary sense, but it was a likeable book, andthought-provoking.     I read it while exercising every day, which helped me moderate my tendency to sink into a book and read it all in a day while ignoring everything else.   Now I think I will read another Charles Williams book next.

Funny that right after I wrote this post on Chesterton’s “Man at the Crossroads“, Kevin watched Tom Hanks in the movie Cast Away that has a crossroads scene (I won’t give details just in case you haven’t seen the movie, but if you did see it you probably remember).

The last time Kevin watched Cast Away was one of the times he was at the hospital in San Francisco with Aidan for a prolonged period.  I guess he felt a little cast away because he joked to a friend and fellow “frequent flyer” that he was going to start talking to Wilson pretty soon.    She thought it was hilarious and mentioned it several times, probably because she had felt the same way herself.    Oh yes, and he had started growing his beard while he was there, so that was what inspired the conversation in the first place, I think.  Funny how those things come back to you.

I guess sometimes people sometimes feel a little cast away when they bring their child home from a prolonged lifechanging hospitalization.    You get used to a certain type of life there at the hospital.    Stressful, scary, and closely supported.   Then you come home.  It’s still stressful and scary but in a more prolonged and diluted dosage.  And you usually don’t quite have the level of support.   You look around and life has gone on without you, everything has changed, and your situation has changed, permanently.   It’s like your life has gone on a completely different track.   You can still see the other track but you’re on a different one.

We didn’t feel QUITE so much like that as some people do.   We were too busy and our family is large enough to be almost a microcosm of society in itself.    We just picked up the loose ends as much as possible and kept going.   But I was just thinking of it again the other day, realizing that I am having a lonely winter.   We haven’t been able to see much of other people at all.    There was a mom at our church who I was just starting to hang out with a little before Aidan was born– we were both pregnant at the same time.    She had a couple of other friends and we had a sort of network going.    Clare and Sean had started Irish dancing and we were entering that network.

But then Aidan was born and we left for several months.   When we got back Aidan was on oxygen and with a G-Tube and Kevin and I were going to town almost every day for his medical and therapy things.   The rest of the time I was trying to homeschool the older five kids — Liam was going into high school.    And this mom’s older kid was just starting school and she was getting involved in the school life.   So though we visited a couple more times after that and still are on good terms, a real friendship situation never quite happened.   A pity.  And the Irish dance teacher had gone on maternity leave and I wasn’t able to pick up those ties either.

That’s what happens when you start free-associating!    I think this is the first year I haven’t been too busy to think of being lonely.  And I suppose that trying to stay off the internet more leaves a real life gap — a good thing for this Lenten season, I suppose.

The firewood guys could only bring one cord yesterday, so Aidan gets to have double the fun, expecting a second cord today.

On the credit side, the firewood is oak.   The guys seemed like good guys, conscientious.  Their prices were cheaper than their competitors’, and they didn’t charge a delivery fee.

On the debit side, the oak is drenched from February rains.  Plus, it’s not seasoned as well as it could be.  They just split it yesterday and it looks like it could use another few months before being prime firewood.     Dry seasoning green wood tips here.

I spent almost an hour getting the fire started yesterday, and burned almost every box in the house.   It was better today because we still had hot coals from last night, but this wood hisses rather than crackles as it heats up.    We have stacked it over our central heating vents to dry out.   Don’t try this at home : ).

As with other frustrating work around this house, like cleaning ashes off everything and shoveling snow, it becomes a metaphor for the spiritual life.     “I have come to light a fire on earth; how I wish it were already ablaze.”    Struggling with damp new wood makes me think of parenting, and my own resistant tendencies, and so many other things.

Yesterday we had loaded up the fire with branches and were just about to set it alight when we saw a small spider trying to escape the heat.   Kevin and Brendan helped me to pull out the branches and salvage the arachnid, and Brendan carried it out to the garage on the end of a stick.   I was just thinking about how nice it was to have my grown son and husband so solicitous of a harmless little creature and wondering if it had planted any seeds of reverence for life in my two youngest boys when Aidan came running by shouting, “We taught that black widow a lesson!”   Hmm, I guess maybe we did, but the lesson was probably lost on the spider and seems to have been lost on Aidan too : ).

Sean is still sick…  visited the doctor today since it is Day Four of the GI problems and she says sometimes these bugs can take a week or two to get over.  His back was hurting which was what made me call the doctor, but he hasn’t had a fever and doesn’t seem SICK sick as he would if he had some sort of GI infection.

We are due to get two cords of oak dumped on our driveway today — Aidan is excited and I’m looking forward to it too — we’re out of wood so I’ve been sawing up branches that we dumped in the garage this fall.    Sawing is surprisingly pleasant but the branches only burn for a few moments, and I am not used to central heat and don’t like it much.