Category: School

A Year’s Journey

Blog: It’s been a while since my last post. A lot has happened. Here is a recap and a forecast of what the future may bring. Wish us luck.

It’s been quite a while since I last wrote a post. We have pushed the pause button on our RV journeys for the time being. We made it through 12 states and ended up deciding to settle back down in Idaho, almost right where we left off. Our house is still being rented out (with amazing renters I must say) so we decided to keep living in the RV, since it only made sense.

Yes. I said it. We are STILL living in an RV with two kids and a dog and so far we haven’t lost our minds. So far.

I must also add in there, that we are living on the ostrich farm that Dan works for. So now, instead of just having one dog, we also have four Great Pyrenees, three goats and about 450+ ostriches (and growing…). It is quite a life to say the least.

In the last 12 months, we have downsized immensely. We have learned to live simpler, happy, more fulfilling lives. We have grown as a family and learned a lot about ourselves. We have seen the western United States and visited 17 National Parks and Monuments (if I counted right… it may be 18). We found beauty in nature. It has been beyond amazing.

We have also struggled. My health has not improved the way we hoped it would. Being in close quarters with two kids sometimes makes me feel like I am losing my mind. Living in an RV is not as glamorous as one would think (ok… no one thinks RV living is glamorous). I miss taking long, hot bubble baths. I miss sitting at a real dining room table having dinner. There isn’t much room for toys, so they end up on the floor ALL THE TIME. My kitchen is tiny and there are times (everyday) that I seem to find myself trying to cook with two kids and a dog all in the 21 sq ft of space. I miss my old kitchen soooo much.

However, in this year, Alexander and Evelyn have excelled in their academics (homeschool). They get along SOOOO much better. They have learned to help one another. With all of our traveling, they have learned to make friends quicker (although they are still pretty shy). They have pushed through long hikes and have thrived without technology. I’m beyond proud of all their achievements and their growth. I’m honored to be their mom and humbled to be their teacher. It has been a good year.

So… what do we have in store for year two?

For starters, I have a short children’s book being published in the next month. It is exciting because it started off as a quick story I made up on the fly and progressed into a fairy tale the kids loved talking about. We are very excited to see it come to life and anxiously await the release.

We are still going to be at the ostrich farm. I have begun to work in the social media and customer service realm while Daniel still works as the Assistant Manager. American Ostrich Farms is an amazing company. They have values and morals and I am proud to have my children see daily what sustainable meat production is like. I love everything about the ostriches and am excited to start working with them in soap production, using the ostrich oil in phenomenal soap.

The kids are still homeschooled. Alexander is learning to play the guitar and they are both in Jiu Jitsu. We love the flexibility of homeschooling and the ability to focus on what we need to or advance as we see fit. The kids love being able to sleep in (almost as much as I do). It just works better for us so we will keep it going.

This summer, we are planning on returning to Wisconsin to visit family for a week or so. We are also hoping to make it to the Redwoods in California as well since it was part of California we missed the first go-around. We have built a greenhouse so I already have plants started and we are going to plan a huge garden. Maybe do a farmer’s market or two. Maybe just donate the produce to the homeless shelters. We will see. I have never had the green thumb, but I feel as though this may be the year.

This has been a long rant, and for that I do apologize. I want to thank all of you for your support, encouragement, love and friendship. It means the world to me to have you in my life and the messages I have received since starting this journey have helped us keep our heads above the water. I have met so many new friends on this journey and I hope to continue to keep in touch and meet many more.

Until we meet again.

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I Could Never Homeschool My Kids… Until I Did

I never thought I would be the parent who homeschooled her child. Now, I wish I would have done it sooner.

I could never homeschool my children. Not that I am not smart enough. I am certainly educated. It is more than that. While I think I am a pretty amazing mom, I just never found that patience that is born with teachers. Going over the same thing a hundred times with a frustrated child until they get it right. Not having the adult stimulation that my insanely nerdish brain craved. I tried doing the stay-at-home mom gig a couple of times. It was truly the hardest job I ever had. I am not the Martha Stewart, Betty Crocker kind of mom who organizes play dates, bakes fancy cupcakes and keeps the house meticulous. In fact, I think my kids spent more time at a CrossFit gym with me than at parks when I had them “full time”.

The truth is: I need to work in order to maintain sanity. I need a sense of individuality. A sense of professional accomplishment. A time away from the chaos of two children that ask for my attention more than is humanly healthy. I need that time away from my family to appreciate them that much more. Even to maintain a schedule. My brain loves being a night owl, but that isn’t quite conducive when you have small children.

Homeschooling was never on my mind. My kids needed to be in an institution where learning was the centerfold most important thing on the agenda. Not breakfast, dishes, lunch, dishes, vacuuming, taking the dog out, picking up toys, dinner, dishes, baths, etc. Get my point? Kids need to be in an environment where they are with their peers and have to learn how to adapt to other’s personalities and a structure that is provided by someone who did not have anything to do with their creation. The Teacher.

Teachers are these strange creatures that I admire, not want to be. They get paid pennies, yet still manage to instill wonder, magic and knowledge into the heads of the children in the classrooms. I have always been amazed at anyone who desired to be a teacher. It simply wasn’t something I possessed or even wanted. So I thought.

As Spring Break began this year, I embraced a new, exciting, terrifying adventure of being a teacher. Not a licensed one, but a homeschool teacher. Yes. I took my children out of school and made the decision to homeschool them.

The decision was not an easy one. However, it was the best decision for our family for many reasons. The first reason was that I was forced to stop working due to my health. While I would love to have sat around drinking wine all day while the kids went to school, it made no sense to keep paying for the preschool my daughter attended. Plus, I needed a new challenge in my life. Another huge factor was my son. He has pretty severe ADHD. Smart as hell when he is focused, but imagine trying to focus in a class of 24 first graders hopped up on sugar. It wasn’t working. We tried changing his diet. We tried meditation. We tried jui jitsu. We tried caffeine. We tried fidget gadgets and even counseling. Even the IEP that was established didn’t do anything. Pretty much anything and everything we read online, heard from friends or could imagine, we tried. Nothing seemed to help much. In fact, his academics and self-esteem seemed to be going on a downward spiral. He would come home crying saying he was dumb, overwhelmed, stupid.

When your first grader thinks he is stupid, something needs to change.

That was the point when I took him to the psychiatrist. My heart was so heavy. I felt like the worst mother in the world. Why couldn’t I fix this problem and unlock the true potential that my child had in that amazing brain of his. The shrink made me feel better by acknowledging I had done everything I could and more. She said that the best thing for him would be medication.

I was going to be medicating my seven year old son so he would fit into an institution of learning that was not designed for him. It would help him focus. It would help him feel not so overwhelmed. It would make him excel. Medication was my last option.

As I sat in the pharmacy line at Walgreens, waiting for my turn to pick up the prescription, I began texting my husband about the plan. I told him the drug’s name and instantly received a response back: “WE ARE NOT GIVING HIM THAT DRUG!!!”. Wow. Turns out, my husband had  the same drug prescribed to him as a juvenile. He hated it. It made him feel so sick and not himself that he ended up refusing it all together. There was no way he would let someone put his child through that torture.

It turns out that most kids have to go through three or four different drugs before they find one that “works” for them. This is over the span of one to two years. I couldn’t agree to putting my son through hell for another couple of years until we found something that would work.

That is when my husband sat me down and talked to me about homeschooling. At first, I kept my old opinions that I could not do as good of a job that TRAINED teachers could. My kids needed that structure. They needed that establishment. However, my son was failing in that environment. We could always transfer him to a private school with very small class sizes but that would cost an arm and a leg. It wasn’t the answer. We made the decision that we needed a complete change in the way he learned. His brain was overly active. Why not teach him in an active environment? Teach him how his brain learns best. That idea was the key to solidifying our decision to homeschool.
The first month of “homeschooling” was more or less a relaxed time of getting to know one another on a more delicate level. I watched my kids play and taught them lessons based off what they should know. I analyzed how my son reacted to physical, emotional and mental stress. I discovered triggers that would make him shut down. I figured out tactics I could use to get him excited about learning. My kids became my test subjects in a fascinating and educational experiment.

One would think that when starting a homeschooling program that the best thing to do would be to sign up for a program. I’m not that kind of person. There are so many online schools out there that are great to use, but I don’t want my kids sitting in front of a computer. They need to learn by doing and I don’t want to use a program as a way-out for myself to sit around and drink wine. Instead, I have spent countless hours scouring various resources and developing a plan for what the kids will learn about based off their ages. Evelyn isn’t set to start Kindergarten until 2018, so she has a lot of leeway when it comes to what she has to know. We are still working more on the Kindergarten level, but at a slower and more playful speed. Alexander is actually already working on the second grade level for the most part. In less than two months, he went from struggling with first grade math to flying through his second-grade math assignments. It is a night and day difference.

My white board is an outline for what we should get done in a day. There are still worksheets, but also fun activities. Today we did Even/Odd assignment where I sent him on a bike ride to count various objects and determine whether they were even or odd. We play with hot wheels. We visit National Parks. Last week, we actually sat on a cliff in the Grand Canyon and did “schoolwork”. This week, we were in Joshua Tree National Park learning about desert plants and animals and how they survive. Our RV shows a map of the United States and both of the children can point out what states we have traveled as well as name their capitals.

I won’t lie and tell you that I don’t miss working. If I could go back, it would be hard to say no. However, I do have a new job that is exciting and just as challenging. I am nowthat strange creature I admire; just on a smaller scale. Homeschooling has given my son hope that he can thrive in the intellectual realm. I believe that one day the kids will go back to “school” and I will  find a new challenge. When they do return, they will have the skills to adapt to the environment, the knowledge that they have discovered while out of that environment and the patience and tolerance for others who struggle. Struggling doesn’t mean a kid is dumb or stupid; it just means that they learn differently than those that don’t struggle. Different can be good.

I never thought the day would come when I would say “I love homeschooling my children”. However, seeing the results and eagerness to learn has made me a true believer. Homeschooling isn’t the answer for all families or all kids. It isn’t an easy way out. It is hard work, lots of patience and should include a nice glass of wine at the end of the night (for the teachers…. not the kids). It saved my son from a low self-esteem, a hard struggle, and lots of tears. It raised his academic performance almost overnight. It enabled him to excel. Those results make me proud to say that I am his teacher or rather: HE is my student.