Homeschooling Learnings: The Bean learning to read

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Homeschooling was not ever something I seriously considered, until it became the only thing I considered. I am thrilled to report that after doing this for two years I finally was able to use my joke I have been sitting on.

“So is your daughter at Chancellor?” We are meeting new neighbors.

“Bean, what do you do for school?” I look down at her and smile.

“We are homeschooling.” She smiles up and runs off with the other children.

The neighbors look at me. Perhaps I am imaging the thoughts that I might have had before being in this boat, so I pull out my joke. “Well, you see, we don’t believe in evolution. So it works well for us.”

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Letter to my Bean: The Birds and the Bees

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Letter to my Bean: The Birds and the Bees

Dearest Bean,

This is one of my favorite stories to tell. The story of how you came to us. You already know that you were born and carried to term in the womb of our dear friend K – but the why and wherefore, we haven’t yet delved into. Yours my dear, is a story of medical magic and glory. The gift of your birth reset your mother’s justice scale with the medical establishment (and if that is confusing, ask your father).

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Letter to my children: Tree cutting

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Letter to my children: Tree cutting

Dearest Beloveds,

If you choose to read any of my writing beyond these letters, you will quickly learn that your momma is not a fan of comparing. As we were discussing yesterday at lunch, comparisons come from judgements and lead to unhappiness. There will always be people who are more accomplished and less accomplished than you in any field that you can imagine - and as such, comparing yourself to others will always lead to making yourself feel temporarily better than someone else or temporarily worse about yourself. It is not a fruitful avenue to explore in life and better to avoid entirely. If you can - avoid judgements altogether - and if that is not possible, than please be conscious of what you are doing and whether you feel it is hurtful or helpful in your belly.

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Letter to my children: “Give me a bunch of while whiles”

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Dearest Beloveds,

About two weeks ago your father and I started noticing this conversation happening. One of us would be washing dishes/feeding the dog/chopping vegetables/putting on socks/etc.

“Momma/Dada! Where are my socks/hat/shoes/big boots/bathing suit/goggles/etc.”

“I will be right there. Give me a second to finish up and I will help you.”

A small pause.

“It has been a second. WHERE are you?!! I can’t hear you moving!”

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Letter to my children: The role of suffering

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Dearest Beloveds,

This morning I was reading to you a variation of the Twelve Iron Sandals - except for this time the enchanted prince was a pig not a dragon. (I prefer the dragon, for obvious reasons.) The last paragraph of the story included this sentence, “And they ruled as only kings can rule who have suffered many things and through their suffering, becoming loving and wise.”

It reminded me of this quote from Resmaa Menakem’s latest blog piece, “When White Bodies Say: Tell Me What To Do.”

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Letters to my children: Berry season

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Letters to my children: Berry season

Dearest Beloveds,

When we lived in Michigan I thought the 5 pound boxes of blueberries one could purchase were obscenely amazing. I would eat blueberries for a week straight, until my tooth enamel yelled at me to stop (too much acidity).

Now we live in New York, with pick your own berry farms surrounding us and I realize that obscene is not the word. The words are glory, bounty, lavishness, profusion, cornucopia, richness, or abundance.

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Mourning

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When my father died, everyone told me (those who have lost a parent), several things with much repetition on certain themes. The first year is the hardest. Grief comes in waves. Sadness will hit you out of the blue and take your breath away. Losing a parent sucks and your life will never be the same again. I was told I am lucky to have adored my father and that he was a good man.

So far so good on all of those.

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Letters to my children: Self Worth

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Good morning my Beloveds,

Before I launch into what I want to talk to you about today… I want to bring up something that happened last night to the Bean. Bean, you dropped a water bottle on your toe and nearly sheared off your toenail. In the bath, your father was telling you that he needed to pull off the remaining nail so that your toe wouldn’t get infected. You were not happy about this idea and tears were falling fast.

The Dragon asks me. “What happens if your toe gets infected?”

“Well, worse case scenario, they would have to cut off your toe.”

Dragon, you pause, contemplate this exaggeration and then shift the interchange to awesome.

“With a chainsaw?”

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Letters to my children: De-pod-ing

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Dearest Beloveds,

I am not sure if this should be spelled depodding, or depoding (rhymes with coding), so I am going to embrace the over utilization of the dash and go with de-pod-ing. (Un-pod-ing sounds even weirder).

De-pod-ing (verb) - to de-pod The act of untangling the psychological, physical, and emotional rules/barriers/mandates that have been in place since March 2020 per Covid-19.

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Letters to my children: Complicity

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Dearest Beloveds,

There are times when I think about the lessons your father and I are trying to teach you and I feel proud. To look in someone’s eye when they talk to you, to not give up before you try, to share our allowance with others who have less, why we turn the lights/fan off when we leave a room, how to take turns, why it is important to eat salad etc etc.

Other times I am not so proud - this morning was one of those times.

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Letter to my children: Why do Baba and Meme live with us?

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Dearest Beloveds,

The subject of this letter was in my original outline that I wrote before Baba died but the sentence sounds better with a double barrel as opposed to just Meme, so there we are.

Meme lives with us because when your Momma was in my early twenties I helped Meme put Grandma (her mother) into a series of assistant living and nursing homes.

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