7 Quick Takes Volume Two: Sheepish Edition

Returning sheepishly to 7 quick takes after a blaze of posting glory, or at least posting.  I'm sorry I've been maintaining radio silence.  There is just no rest for the weary.  So without further ado:

1.  

Avery was finally baptised!  I had wanted to have her baptised in the NICU, but I didn't because I didn't want people to think I was crazy which I regret, but I'm glad it's done now.  Sarah the weirdo and her husband are Avery's godparents which makes her pretty darn blessed.  I don't think you can be pretty darn blessed, but if you can, Avery is.

Anna isn't really that short but her new thing is not standing up straight for pictures.

The gown Avery is wearing is a family heirloom.  My Dad wore it to his baptism 62 years ago.  I wore it, my 4 siblings wore it, and all of my 6 children have worn it.  It is very beautiful and at this point very fragile.  It's also made of a silk satin and covered in lace because boy or girl, italians will dress for the occasion.  It has a slip, a gown, and a coat, it also has a hat so the baby won't catcha the draft, but the hat is in rough shape after all these years.  Let me tell you, a baby wrapped in 3 layers of silk satin is so slippery it's like trying to baptize a greased pig.  But what a beautiful little piggy!

2.  

I've been exercising regularly, probably more than I have since college, because health and stuff.  I've been taking PIYO(combination pilates/yoga), swimming laps 2 or 3 times a week, and yesterday I took an interval training class.  I'm able to do that without breaking the bank because we belong to our local YMCA.  There is nothing glamorous about the Y, certainly nothing glamorous about our little Y that could, but we really love it.  It really is such an awesome resource for families.  The membership is affordable and if you're a member you get a break on the fees for all of the kids sports and classes on top of tons of free group exercise, use of the pool, I could go on.  Really, if you're looking for a family friendly alternative to a traditional gym you must check out your local Y.

3.  

Yesterday I walked into my bathroom to find that someone had shaved (shaven?) one of my make up brushes with their Dad's razor.  I don't know who it was but I have a pretty good idea.  I really thought I'd seen it all, or most of it.  Some of you are saying "you already posted this on facebook".  I know, but, THEY SHAVED MY MAKEUP BRUSH.

4.  

Please keep praying for Ben:

Pray for Ben and his family.

and Ava:

Pray for Ava and her family.

Could you also pray for my friend Sweetie?  She just had a double masectomy and is on the road to recovery.  Please pray for her continued healing.

5.  

You know that saying about resting on one's laurels?  Some people don't want to rest on theirs, but I'd like to make a little nest out of mine, scant though they may be, and just snuggle up in there and take a nap.  It turns out though, that there is no rest for the weary my friends.  The reason this blog has been languishing of late is that I'm working on a BIG project.  It's totally nuts and it is something that grown ups do, the competent kind, not kooks like me.  Some dear friends of mine, dear friends who were there that night at Wegmans, and I are opening a schoolish.  What is a schoolish?  It's really called a Learning Center and it's a place that offers History, Literature, Science, and Latin for 2 half days a week.  There will also be electives like art and music in the afternoon.  Why a schoolish, I mean Learning Center?  It's a way to have the best of homeschooling and traditional school.  

I still can't believe this is happening but it is happening because we are making it happen.  We're in the midst of incorporating, filing our 501c3, choosing curriculum, and on and on.  My Dad used to say that he always felt the same inside even though he grew older on the outside and I've always felt that way too, but I've never felt it as keenly as when I was sitting across a conference room table from our attorney discussing our venture.  I kept expecting her to suddenly say: "Wait just a minute young lady...WHERE IS YOUR MOTHER?" but she didn't.  This isn't what I expected to be doing a little more than 5 months after finishing chemo, but I am.  It's taking up most of my free time right now.

6.  

April 2nd was the anniversary of when my neck got filleted to get my lymph node out.  A year.  I can't believe it.  The 16th will be 6! months since my last Chemo.  I had a CT scan last week and I go to see the oncologist today so she can tell me to my face that I'm still in remission.  Could you pray for me?  I get a bit of anxiety every time I have to go there.

7.  

I'm sure you haven't figured out from this blog, but Jennifer Fulwiler is my favorite blogger ever.  She is the hostess of these here quick takes and she has a book coming out about her conversion from lifelong atheism to Catholicism.  It is recommended by Dean Koontz and Gretchen Rubin people!  And then, AND THEN! she was all like, oh, I think since I just wrote an awesome life changing book I'll write another awesome life changing book to go with it.  Right now if you pre-order her memoir: "Something Other Than God: How I Passionately Sought Happiness And Accidentally Found It", you can get a free e-book "The Family First Creative: 42 Tips For Following Your Dreams While Putting Your Family First".

What are you waiting for?  Do you hate learning important stuff?

I just wrote this whole thing under toddler attack so sorry for formatting etc...Go see the amazing Jen for more, better written quick takes!

Mourn and Release: Homeschooling

This is the 3rd post in a series of posts titled "Mourn and Release".  The first post explains the point of the series, and the second specifically addressed homebirth.  Now I'm going to whine about homeschooling.  I'd suggest a smoked gouda with this whine, but since this is about homeschooling I guess I should suggest some really serious bleu cheese because then we could map its origins and culture the strain of mold and practice some french vocabulary (How many of you had a judgey moment thinking I misspelled bleu?).  

Anyhoo, we just love to do stuff at home around here.  Just like in the homebirth post, I'm not going to get into the reasons why we chose to homeschool.  There is so much about it out there in the ether that I would be beating a very dead horse.  Gross.  Besides, while homeschooling is still not the most common educational choice, it is more and more mainstream everyday so most people know a few homeschoolers and have come across an article or two on the subject.  Homeschooling is awesome, when it fits your family's needs.

I first had an inkling that I might be a future homeschool Mom back in my pre-Motherhood days when I was in Graduate School to be a teacher.  Once I became a mother and my oldest child approached school age I started to look at it seriously.  Michael and I did a lot of reading and a lot of talking and a lot more reading and a lot more talking in the process of making the decision to forgo traditional schooling.    I did a lot of reading and researching and talking and Michael did a LOT of very patient listening and asking questions and helping me sort it all out.  In all that research of philosophies and curricula and socialization (fellow homeschoolers let's all have a snort together), there was one piece of advice that has stuck with me:

The decision to homeschool in a family should be made on a child by child, year by year basis.  

I wish I could remember where I read this precious, precious gem.  The woman that wrote that deserves a medal, and dessert, and the title: "Super Smart Super Level Headed Genius of the World".  It is the ONLY piece of advice you need.  New homeschoolers can be kind of exhausting with their constant talking about curricula and unschool or classical and blah blah blah.  I know.  I was one of them.  I still love looking at books and reading about homeschool resources and Pin All The Things that I see that I could possibly ever use in our homeschool so believe me, I'm not immune.  But the first most important decision before a single book is chosen is simply "Will this best serve the needs of this individual child this year?".

Way back in the fall, I started to consider that we might not all be homeschoolers next year.  It was just a whisper in the back of my mind but the data was beginning to pile up that the needs of each individual child measured against what I could realistically provide during this season of our life was not a balanced equation.  OUCH.  You see, about 2 years ago, it started to become clear that Owen was having difficulty learning to read and write.  Up until then he was behind his peers but well within normal limits, especially considering he was boy.  Soon though, we had to face that Owen needed more intensive intervention.  He completed Speech Therapy and Vision Therapy.  I cannot say enough about how life changing Vision Therapy was for Owen and I highly recommend that if you have a struggling reader you take them straight to a Developmental Optometrist.  Despite this therapy and continued reading instruction, he fell further and further behind.  I have done every single instructional method and remediation I know, and as someone who holds an undergraduate degree in Linguistics with a focus on Child Language Acquisition and a Master's degree in Elementary Education, I was as "well prepared" as a Mom could possibly be to teach a struggling reader .  But it didn't matter.  My 9 year old, who in a traditional school setting would be entering a 4th grade classroom in the fall, reads at a first or second grade level.  There are no words to describe how difficult that is to write.

It has been a long, hard, terrifying road.  Until my cancer diagnosis it was my all consuming project to find new curricula, new therapies, and new experts to evaluate him.  It was what kept me up at night.  It is terrifying to have a child that can't read.  In the 21st century a kid would be better off missing a limb than being illiterate.  Even more scary is the knowledge that I alone am to blame, there is no one else to share the responsibility for his illiteracy.  A parent whose child is in school can share the blame for their child's struggles with the teachers and other professionals in the school.  When you homeschool, the cheese stands alone.  Even though we have gotten him outside help, it is still on me.  The self doubt and fear you feel as a parent that you could be failing your child in such a profound way can be paralyzing, but we couldn't afford paralysis, we had to keep pushing ahead to find an answer.

After completing Vision Therapy, Owen was also evaluated for Central Auditory Processing Disorder, and went on to have a complete Neuro-psychological evaluation.  Through these hours and hours of evaluations and therapies and research we have determined that Owen is Dyslexic.  It is such a relief.  Now we know why normal remediation couldn't help him.  Now we know where to start finding resources that can actually help.  Owen needs a lot of very intensive one on one attention that cannot be provided in a traditional school environment.  It also cannot be provided with needy younger sisters running around.  Owen will work with an Orton-Gillingham specialist this year in conjunction with instruction provided at home by yours truly.  THIS we can work with!  THIS will be a lot of work for us, but it is work that will bear fruit.  Best of all, Owen's dyslexia would be a terrible impediment to him in a traditional school, but there is no reason for it to be an impediment to him in life.  Dyslexia isn't even really a disability at all.  In fact, many of the best things about Owen, his most impressive talents and skills are as much a part of his Dyslexia as the challenges it poses for his interactions with written language.  We were blessed to have him home to be able to identify it as soon as we did, and we are blessed to have him at home to provide him with the quality and method of instruction he needs.

You're probably starting to wonder...who's going to school?  The big girls (Madeleine and Anna) will go to our wonderful parish school where their very standard, very easy to meet needs will be met so that I can tend to Owen's much more pressing needs without distraction.  The girls are constantly asking me for more school work, and between the intensive attention that Owen needs and the fact that there are still 2 OTHER KIDS in the house, the attention to academics they were begging for just wasn't happening.  They are neuro-typical super enthusiastic learners who like to be around other kids.  It's a no brainer that sending them to school for a year makes sure everyone gets what they need.

So what's the big deal?  Ego alert.  Again.  I have to admit I can't be the "be all end all" for my kids.  I believe that all things being equal homeschooling is the most ideal educational choice, and even with that belief, I have to accept that it's not for all of my kids at this time.  I have to admit I'm not enough, mostly to myself.  I have to admit that I need help.  I have to not just admit it, but be grateful that I even have access to that help and to many different choices to boot.  It is a privilege to have the ability to forgo a second salary so I can be home for the kids who need me at home.  It is a privilege to have the ability to send the kids who don't need to be home to a high quality private school.  It is even a privilege to have a child with special educational needs and be able to identify it, let alone provide the services needed to help him succeed.  Yet here I am, again, feeling sorry for myself because I "have to" send 2 of my 6 children to an excellent school for one year.  Shame, shame, double shame, everybody knows your name.

Maybe after our traditional schooling adventure I'll get to bring everyone home again, maybe not.  Maybe we'll have a mix of schoolers in our house again, maybe not.  Maybe someday they'll all go somewhere else without me OMG GET ME A PAPER BAG!!!!!  Just kidding, mostly.  Maybe they will, and if they do it will be because their needs trump any educational philosophy I can espouse.  Because it's about them and recognizing that homeschooling is good, so so good, but not if it's not right for them.  So when the coo coo homeschooler voice in my head starts yelling at me "You're warehousing your kids!" or "Their teachers won't even know who Susan Wise Bauer is!", I need to tell her to zip it, because that b**** be tres cray (that's ghetto French for "that young lady is very crazy".).  Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go hide my denim jumper so the homeschool police can't confiscate it.

Mourn and Release (Alternate Title: Get Over Yourself)

Mourn?  

Wait, Nella--you just wrote 3 obnoxious posts about your awesome attitude.  How does mourning jive with that?  Yeah.  Well, that's how life is.  Staying as positive as you can, counting your blessings, offering up your sufferings: none of those make the negative or difficult go away.  But it all helps you deal.  Ignoring the challenges of this situation wouldn't be a great idea.  I have to wade right into the pit and wallow there for a bit so I can let those disappointments go and move on.  Part of the reality of my Lymphoma diagnosis are the sacrifices and sufferings.  Ignoring them is not part of a good attitude, particularly because the sacrifices and sufferings are opportunities for me to learn and grow.  In this series I'm going to look some particular disappointments in the eye, be honest about why they upset me, and then let them go.  At least that's the idea.

With my cancer diagnosis and this pregnancy, my life has obviously changed a great deal.  Some of the biggest lifestyle choices I have obsessively researched and implemented in our lives since we became parents over 9 years ago are changing in part or are being entirely abandoned.  It is a tremendous blow to my pride to see that it will be dismantled.  It's so easy when you research things and incorporate them into your life to begin to believe that they are right.  FULL STOP.  You of course say: "It's right for us.".  But when you have accumulated mountains of evidence in support of your choices and read blogs and articles and books that agree with your choices it's only human to begin, even subconsciously (but really pretty consciously) to believe that your choices are right.  FULL STOP.  My very "right" choices that are being modified or eradicated are as follows:

*Homebirth
*Breastfeeding
*Homeschooling

Those are three intimate, profound decisions that we are having to reverse entirely or in part and it is hard.  Each of those things can be good.  Each of those things is very good.  In the right situation.  But when you choose them, it is really easy to get pulled down the "right" rabbit hole.  It's nice to have your decisions validated and to be able to tell yourself: "Well, of course this isn't for everyone, but THANK GOD it's for me."  Each of these decisions, the decision to have a homebirth, to breastfeed, and to homeschool were decisions I had the luxury of making.  I've enjoyed good health and economic privilege.  I took things that are  privileges and I gave them the aura of virtues, but the truth is I was blessed to be able to choose things that aren't available to everyone.   Each of these things are ideal.  But they are not right.  There is so little in the world, especially in the developed world, that is genuinely right or wrong.  But I took these things and elevated them way beyond where they belong.  It shouldn't be so emotional to let these things go in light of my situation.  Cognitively it all makes sense.  It's embarrassingly obvious that the right thing is to abandon homebirth, breastfeeding, and homeschooling(in part). 

From the serious to the mundane, I can make an idol out of anything that I can make mine, which is everything. We all can. ~Calah Alexander

 It's my pride, and only my pride, that is standing in my way and tormenting me at this point.  I want to keep these ideal choices because I believed they were right, but when you decide something is right you are also deciding the opposite of it is wrong.   But in these cases it's not.  It's just less than ideal.  We first world Mama's are really good at elevating all kinds of things to right or wrong.  We want to give our families the best of everything.  But the brutal truth is you can't have the best of everything all the time, and more than that, the fact that it's not the best or the ideal doesn't mean it's not a blessing.  There are mothers all over the world who would give a limb or their lives (and even have), to give their children my consolation prizes.  How dare I continue to spend energy on lamenting giving them up?  I have to make myself get over it.  I have to get over myself.

The next 3 posts will be me mourning that these choices have been taken from me, but also a challenge to my pride, an acknowledgement of the idols I've constructed in my life.  What a hoot, eh?