When you are a parent you look forward to your child's "firsts". First word, first step, first non tar poop (seriously), first tooth (even the breastfeeding moms look forward to this one), first bite of real food etc. My son just had a pretty big first, and I almost ignored it. Let's be real, I didn't ignore it. But I sure as hell didn't cherish it. I didn't look at my son with pride, amazement and wonder (like I should have). I high fived him, used my fake super excited voice, gave him hugs, and told him he was awesome. My son had read his first word, on his own, sounded it out and everything. This is a big deal. He didn't say the word from memory (like kids do with sight words); no, he learned the sounds of those letters and how they sound together, then sounded them out one at a time to READ that word. And I? I made a big deal about it without actually feeling the moment. Why? Why didn't I savor that precious moment? Because I am stressed. And if we are honest, as parents it happens. We get so stressed and focused on the wrong thing (or the right thing at the wrong time) that we sometimes miss the real genuine moments we are supposed to savor.
What could possibly have me that stressed? What I was doing, and the preparation to take that task on full time in just about 2 months. You see, we are moving. The United States military is sending us to Hawaii. This is exciting and stressful. The military has all sorts of regulations and hoops to jump through when moving OCONUS (outside the continental United States). After that, I had to start researching schools to send our kid(s). In my research I discovered that Hawaii has an early birth date cut off line. The line that separates whether a child is a first grader or kindergartener. It's July 31st. My August baby would end up behind in school because in this state the cut off line is so early (seriously, that's super early). After looking into all of our options (very expensive options) I broke down to my husband about the unfair position this puts our son. My son loves to go to preschool. He never wants to leave. He loves it, he loves learning, he loves being active, this is the time to cultivate that and keep challenging him. My husband asked me how can we make sure that he keeps getting challenged while staying in budget for school. The answer is that, even if money were no object, you can't. He would end up with 2 more years of preschool instead of 1, and he is already doing most of what the Hawaiian DOE sets as the standard for entry to kindergarten. After a few moments I said the unthinkable, "I will have to homeschool him." This unthinkable statement is because I had been getting ready to go back to work. I was excited to finally get back to work and use my skills, practice my craft, get on with that part of my life. No. Instead, I will be educating my son while picking up work here and there as I can make it work. I was looking forward to the alone time. No alone time for me now. I don't know how long I've been actively pursuing homeschool now, but it's been at least 3 weeks. And in those 3 weeks I have had...at least as many break downs. I decided to start somewhere small and "simple" (veteran educators are all laughing at me now): reading. I could start, now, to teach my son to read and keep researching and figuring out this homeschool thing.
I failed. I did not start out teaching my son very well. I got a book, rave reviews from everyone (online, people I know, even teachers), and started. But I misunderstood something crucial and I put too much pressure on my son and not enough understanding. As a result he was not excited to learn to read at first. It took me almost a week to figure it out and get us on the right path. The day he read his first word I was filled with self doubt and worry about the hell we are about to embark on. Realizing that I missed the moment I decided to take a step back. I was making this whole thing too complicated. I had a good solid plan: teach through kindergarten and when finished just move onto 1st grade-no timelines, just keep going forward and when we get back to the mainland in a few years we will decide about placing him in school (and addressing grade placement) or continuing to homeschool. But my good plan got crazy when trying to pick curriculum and teaching aids/resources. I took about 5 steps back and wrote down some subjects: Language Arts, Math, Science, History, PE/Nutrition/Nature, Art/Music and then I decided to fill in the blank spaces beneath those subjects. Language Arts: Reading-Teach Your Child To Read in 100 Easy Lessons, Writing-. That's as far as I had gotten. I did a lot more reading, and thinking about how I wanted my son to learn and how he is as a person. I found a writing program that is good for kinesthetic learners and a math program too. I also found a math program that has great reviews for being applicable to everyday life. Okay, good going. Language Arts and Math are done. Z-Man gets a Koala Crate each month, that comes with 3 different STEM projects to build. So I wrote that under science along with The Magic School Bus (one of his favorite shows). PE/Nutrition/Nature doesn't really require anything beyond coloring a paper plate and helping mom meal prep (maybe even grocery shop). We are an active family and we love to be in nature. So this doesn't require us to do anything different at this age. History? Coloring books about the states and the state birds/flowers should be sufficient and fun. Maybe we'll find a puzzle map, or something like that. Easy, done. Art/Music...we are a house about playing music. Guitar, mountain dulcimer, ocarina, piano, ukele, clarinet-we love our musical instruments. So...how does one teach music to a 4/5 year old? I don't really know. I'm still working on this. For art though, color combinations and continuing to show my son how to take pictures (yes, my preschooler is all about taking photography). I decided to make this less traditional and more us because I was already losing sight of the goal.
I don't want to miss his firsts again. I also want to make sure he's prepared for school (should he go in the next 4-5 years). This is going to be a crazy journey. And I'm going to need to force myself to really take care of myself. I need to be more than a mombie; I need to really savor the firsts and encourage the progress-in the most authentic way possible.
