lessons from home school

First of all please try to trust me when I say YOU CAN DO THIS.  You can teach your kids from home.  

I promise. 

What you probably can't do is SCHOOL at home. Trying to copy the school day isn't going to work for you or your kids.... because you aren't at school. 

The first thing you do is take all your kids' school work and put it away.  While you are doing that put away the guilt about not doing it.

The next thing you do is find your supplies. 

Pull out all your art supplies, board games, dice, cards, magazines, newspapers (even the junk mailers), interesting books, legos, straws, flashlights, spare change, toothpicks, sewing stuff, broken stuff, and if you have one a junk drawer out on your kitchen table.

What you are looking for are things that might interest your kids. Let's say you find a bag of old gummy candy or marshmallows add the toothpicks and you have a stem project. 

Put scissors on a pile of magazines (you can even use old damaged books).  Make art, make poetry, make a vision board, signs, write notes, etc. 

Make your own board game.  Make it personal about your life.

Create a newspaper: write breaking stories about members of your house, ads, weather, etc.

Pull a recipe out double it (yeah math!). But no really bake something, bake lots of somethings. Make pizza from scratch. Play with dough. 

Make a comic book. Make a storybook. Make a wanted poster. 

Listen to stories on Youtube while you paint or draw together. 

Design a park, a dream house, a treasure map.

Look up science experiments you can do.

Look up math games! So many, so much fun!!!

Clean together- yeah, clean, organize, repair, paint, cook, etc.

Play some of those board games you own.  In fact, play all of them. Make a game and a chart (yeah math).  See how many days (or hours) it takes.  

Didn't like one of them- give it to someone else or make an art project out of it.

Assign each kid to find a strange fact to share with the family. 

Create a list of interview questions and interview each other.  Call family and friends and interview them.

Egg drop!!! Remember the egg drop challenge. Do that!!!! 

Make paper airplanes.

Make a diorama. Create a dance. Play super old music.  Write a play and act it out.  Better yet, write ads for things in your house. 

Memorize a piece of poetry.  I highly recommend Shel Silverstein! 

Watch classic movies together. But don't do it in a regular way.  Create movie tickets, get your snacks together, and REALLY watch the movie together. 

Read a book together. If this seems like the greatest idea you never want to have to actually do try it this way. Find a book like Charlie and the Cholocate Factory or Alice in Wonderland (a classic that everyone thinks they know) set a goal to read 1 chapter a day. And I don't care how old your kids are.

Learn sign language. 

Pick an animal/country/person to study.  Read, draw, paint, watch youtube about your interest.

Make a lego zoo.  Write little signs for the different sights around your zoo.

Go old school with the yard games.

Teach a mini-course of auto shop, map reading, geology.

You don't need me or this random list of ideas you have the internet but if you have a challenge or a subject you want ideas for please feel free to ask.   

The main idea is learning at school looks one way because traditional SCHOOL has brick walls.  

Teachers have limited space, lots of kids, and limited resources and freedom. They spend years learning the set of skills they use to teach the way they do. 

Why is your 1st grader's homework so hard to do? Because the materials are designed to be used within the system of SCHOOL.

Teaching your kids is something you have done their whole lives. Think about it. You are their first teacher. Think of all the things you have taught them!!! 

You can do this! We all can <3 

2020

My calendar stops on March 14th, the week before the State Meet. The reds blues, and greens mark my work schedule and Beach's work schedule, our appointments, Beach's gym schedule, MVP, social activities, bills due, chores, all of it frozen on a whiteboard.

Has it really been a full work week? A Monday to Monday of life altered? That was fast...

I can say that safely because no one can come close enough to me to punch me in the face.

But yes, we have had a lot going on.  I have friends on the frontline working to save as many people as they can.  And I have elderly parents sheltering in place.

I have a partner still working, trying to do it as safely as he can for everyone.  Trying to keep work going for the workers who rely on him to put food on their tables.

My oldest son is a plumber, and he is still working.

My oldest daughter has an underlying medical condition and is in quarantine, fearing for her health and her life.

 Our youngest son was sent home from college last week, but he got stir-crazy in the city so he returned to the organic farm he lives and works outside of Cedar City, Utah.

During this time, BC was forced to travel 2x.  While he was gone, we had an earthquake of 5.7.  The aftershocks are still rolling in. 

The gym sent a conditioning program to do at home for Beach.  She began running for cardio and seemed hooked.

Utah's social gathering number is 10.  As of yesterday, our death count is 1. We are the state with the highest hoarding rate in the nation.  Police are patrolling inside the stores.

We have had to shop (3x) mainly because the grown kids keep showing up (and for care packages and RX's for Alexis), and also for fresh produce.

We have socialized thoughtfully and carefully.  We have chosen our contact risks.  We have a small circle... but they also have small circles... and their small circles have small circles.  It causes a lot of jokes about Sally; if you sleep with Sally, you sleep with everyone Sally ever slept with.

When someone leaves the yard, we yell, "Remember, don't sleep with Sally!" The way I see it, it makes just as much sense as yelling "wash your hands" to someone getting in a car.

I have seen a lot of good.  I would almost say the world looks better this way.  It's slower; it's more thoughtful and more focused on what is real. Resources are respected. Errands consolidated.

I see families out on walks. I see happy dogs. I see friends and neighbors reaching out to each other. Love and caring and kites flying.

This is the slow life that I have been living behind the fast life of being a Gym Mom for nearly a decade.  We plant a big garden, we raise hens for eggs, we homeschool, we bake (a lot), and we live close to the land.  We have a freezer full of meat that BC hunted.

I feel safe in this slow world. When I look up and out over the rim of our little farmstead, I get sad.  I think about the long stretch of not having choices about living little and slow or living big and fast.

I wonder about the surrealness of an earthquake in the middle of a pandemic.  Unbelievable. (How much I would love to be able to laugh about this with Wendi; so many things she didn't live to see...)

Those who know me have been joking that I have been preparing for this my whole life.

When I was little, I had a dollhouse. Three stories high, my dad had made it for me.  The year before that, he made me a huge train track on a 4'x8' sheet of plywood and turned it into a table attached to a pulley system so I could raise it to lay flat against my bedroom wall. When the train table was down, it was level with the third floor of the tiny house.

I would set up the dolls. Tiny bottles, plates, toys, books, mini forks, tables, beds, and porcelain dolls. Then I would run the train full throttle at a blocked track calculated to derail it straight into the dollhouse and play out the disaster.

Sometimes, I would set the dollhouse up and just shake it and play an earthquake.  Or bunker the family in one room of the house and play out a blizzard.

The disaster wasn't the fun part it was the hunkering down and the gathering of resources that I liked.  I liked to feel safe by playing out survival. I am a planner, an organizer, and a caretaker.

In adulthood and in a world of real people, I know too much to be having fun. This isn't fun. But it is what I am good at.

Only in very small moments do I get scared.  Mostly, I am sad.  I'm sad for those suffering.  I'm sad about the loss of things we haven't lost yet but soon will.

The gymnastics community is my window to the wider world. It is unimaginable these young athletes are not in the gym training. The end of the Season without warning was shocking. 

I happen to have Beach's very last floor routine from her last night at practice. Right now, I am too sad to watch it. How they will pick up and go back, I don't know.  It will cost so many of them their futures in this sport.

I look at the kids, and I wonder what happens next for them. There are a lot of unknowns. What I hope for is that when we are called out from our hiding places, we come out with renewed hearts.

Life is beauty.  Good is winning. We just need to all hold on. Take turns breaking down and building back up. There are people among us who will not see the other side of this. It's important that we walk this path in a way we want to be remembered for.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep. ~Robert Frost

the size of the fight

I'm not going to tell you a story so don't ask.  It's not that exciting anyway and you will live not to know the exact details.  

In fact, go ahead and insert any G-rated storyline you like- it's all the same for the purposes here. It's not the point.  It doesn't matter. 

What I am going to tell you is how proud of my child I am.  

Sometimes it is easy to stand up for what you believe in and sometimes it's not.  

Sometimes it will cost you something you have worked hard for; hurt for, cried for.

I have said many times that Beach is a fighter.  If she was in public school she would always be in some kind of trouble. That sweet smiling kid is more than she appears.  She has a strong internal sense of social justice. Constantly on the side of the underdog.  If she believes something isn't right, she won't leave it alone. 

She is innately good.  Kind, generous, thoughtful, and smart.  These things help because that much fight poured into the wrong type of moral character would be dangerous. 

This is why gymnastics works so well for her; most days you get out what you put in, gravity is fair to everyone, the equipment is predicable stoic, and you support your team no matter what. 

She also has a built-in drive to collect the herd- to team build and to belong. She sees her team and her friends as part of her and she part of them. 

Yesterday she did what she thought was right despite thinking her parents would both be mad. In fact, believing all the adults around her could possibly be angry. 

Remember a time you did that.  A time you made a choice (the right choice in your heart) and voiced it knowing it would piss off everyone you loved.  

Despite the price tag literal and metaphoric, she stood her ground. 

As she told me the events, her words, and her choice I realized I was listening to the words of a true Leader. 

Whether or not one agrees with her (or what she was fighting for) she stood up for what she believed in.  

She fought for someone else giving everything she could. Everything she had to offer. 

She didn't solve world peace or stop global warming. She didn't even win the fight. The issue will be talked through by the real parties involved and forgotten. 

What matters is the willingness to stand up and say your truth. To fight for what you believe in.  There isn't enough of that going around these days. 

Somehow I have returned to running and to writing. Those 2 things go together for me.  But so do the nightmares.  Running fuels them.  They feed off sore muscles and adrenaline. 

Last night after Beach spilled her story to me and left my bed I fell asleep to the old whispers.  Old dreams, old ghosts, old monsters.

Sometime in the night, I dreamt of a room filled with party-goers; a mix of prom and little kids at Halloween.  I asked a question and Beach answered, "Ask Wendi."  

I turned to see my sister sitting beside Beach on a stool.  A perfect 16-year-old Wendi.  The way I remember her when she was my best friend. Before all the boys and the beer and the drugs took her away. 

Wendi said nothing she simply smiled pastel and papery. 

"How did Wendi get back here?" I asked Beach.  Because it's been a long time since I have seen her in my dreams.

"Oh, she's with me, "Beach answered. 

I suppose she is now... perhaps that only makes sense to me. But like I said that sort of fight in the wrong hands can be dangerous. In the right ones, it will save us all. 

the things we do for love

I have done one and a half loads of laundry.  Changed the sheets on our bed including the duvet cover- what a serious pain that is!

Prepared dinner for tonight; an elk roast in a rich red tomato jalapeno broth with seeping garlic and heavy tones of black pepper, a side of creamy mashed potatoes for Beach and BC, and a dryish smashed yam for myself, green salad.

For dessert, a peanut butter brownie pie made with the following substitutions and/or additions: apple sauce, greek yogurt, oatmeal, and hand mashed black beans.

I have emptied and loaded the dishwasher twice, cleaned out the fridge, vacuumed three rooms, sorted the bills, trimmed and rearranged the flowers, fed the dogs and the cats, swept the mudroom, took out the trash, cleaned one of the two bathrooms, put a hundred things back where they go... and now that I think about it before doing all that I made breakfast, cleaned it up, and worked out.

The one thing I did not do was run Beach to work, BC did because he had extra time this morning.

While abandoning his coffee mug in the middle of the kitchen BC asked what the occasion was for all the work I was doing.  Well, it's Thursday... 

The special occasion is this is our one and only life.  

I do most of these things or things like them every day that I can. These are some of the last days for our little family to be together as we are now.  They are also some of the first days on the next adventure for each of us.

Beach is 16.  The closer she gets to a decision about her future in gymnastics the closer I see the end of this life and the start of something new.  Where and what that looks like I don't know.

All of her siblings are out on their own. Each took a different path. The talk of colleges beyond the idea of gymnastics is only now beginning. Driver's Education which had been on hold is now scheduled.

We have two years before she graduates from high school.  But two years?! That's not very long in the heart of a mother.

I am laying down the final pieces of a road that has taken us from where we began to where we are now.  A road that she will branch from to take out to the world beyond.  A road I want to make so wide and open and strong that she will always be able to find it again. No matter where she goes. 

Some of it I am repaving. The return of nightly desserts, family game night, and a family read-aloud novel.  Projects and Nova. Thoughts of spring camping and summer hikes.  Complex plans for the garden.  Our life as it was when they were all little.  Life slow and predictable. Well, as predictable as life can be with BC. Some of the stones are new. Adventures in Art and Fashion, a wild muddy Cowdog, and a woodshop with a big idea.

The smell of clean laundry, the memories of healthy homemade food, all the colors of the dishes put neatly away, and the sounds of childhood on newly swept floors.  There is a lot to do.  There is a lot that won't get done.  Dinners will burn, pies will not turn out but the love inside the work, inside the hours and the days that's what matters. The making of a home with open doors and sleeping cats.

Every day is a special occasion.  

Every day there is a reason to live your life as big as you can. 

Grandpa and Grandma Brown

white notes

Good morning, our country seems to be at war. The coffee is full and hot but I lost one of the two dogs.  And not the one you think it would be.

I spent more time searching for Beach's Comp jacket.  Our house seems very big at 4AM. What I found is that we have a lot of little clothing that falls in the same category.  However, none of them is that jacket.

It's okay, we are made of money- I'm sure of it. Anyway, she can just wear a different jacket.  Maybe her ski jacket or her faux-fur coat- she'd look great! Or even better she could wear a different little black gym jacket at each event!!! That's really more her style.

Beach's session starts at 9:30... I think. Maybe we should ask someone who works there.  They should know.

I can't remember what time I told Beach we needed to be there so I will announce we are leaving when she looks like she is 95% ready to go.  Please don't blow it for me and ask what time I am leaving.

Please feed the dogs.  I have found the other one. There is a half pot of warm coffee and some sliced fruit. ham, and boiled eggs for your breakfast.

I fed the cats. Sorry about the ham.

My car needs gas but I am going to be gone for the next 2 days until after the pumps at Costco close. If you want to go pick up my car and gas it for me you can- if you can find it.  We have to park off-site.  I can text your address.  It will be fun, like geocaching but not really.

You will have to get your own dinner.  Please save me a beer (or 2).  But I will see you when you come up to watch Beach vault.  It will be like old times, you and me in a crowded gym waiting, and waiting, and waiting...

Still no jacket. And it turns out I was wrong about there being coffee.  You might want to make yourself some and if you wouldn't mind bringing me up a cup when you come, that would be amazing!

Turns out I was wrong about fruit and eggs too.  Perhaps the chickens will lay early today.  If not there is leftover pizza in the fridge.

Gotta run,

Misty

Nedra

She sends me letters.  

They seem to come every month or so.  Little notes, sayings, and lessons. Small thoughtful gifts like tea towels on holidays. 

I open every one of them.  I read them.  I like them.

I take the letters to my mother.  

I show her the thoughtful sayings and positive lessons and practical gifts.  She shares them with her friends and they share them with theirs. 

I never tell Nedra thank you because I don't know her. I've never met Nedra and she's never met me.  

I am guessing she is my Visiting Teacher.  A woman from the local church, or ward as it called in the LDS church, assigned to touch base with me. 

She drew the short straw if you ask me.  You might say I am an ex sheep- extremely ex. 

As far as I can remember living here these letters have come.

Last month she included a questionnaire of 80 questions to ask a family member.  Beach and I carried it with us for a week pulling it out, asking and answering the questions.  

How clever this is, I told my mom over the phone. When we get through it I will give it to you.  You'll like this.  It's really neat.   

This month it was 3 different cards printed on bright shiny papers with the collective message about being present with your loved ones vs. buying presents.

I read my favorite one to BC and he smiled agreeing.  I set them aside to take to my mother.    

I never tell Nedra anything.

Nedra keeps believing in the dark that she is making a difference.  Nedra is right, she is.  Each time she sends me a letter she mails me a tiny piece of belief.  

A belief in kindness and bravery.   

It's been a long time since I have sent out a Christmas card but this year I do have one to send. 

Dear Nedra, Merry Christmas...   

to those coming up behind us

I look at that photo and I count; 1,2,3,4,5,6,7. 

Seven girls gone from that 2016-17 Season (lv 8-10) alone.  Of course, there are more missing than that. 

You can't spend 9 years somewhere and think nothing will change.  Nine years and no one will grow up.

This isn't Neverland it's gymnastics. 

Maybe too much has changed for her since the start.  Maybe the pain has made her tired.  The isolation dimming the light. Maybe she is still willing to go on- maybe not.


To Those Coming Up Behind Us, a little piece of advice. Enjoy the journey, the moments in between performances and placements.  

Let them be little in the elevators and big on the stages. Say yes, say no. Sleep in, stay up late, take the back roads.  Don't apologize for letting her choose.  

This time for them is so short.  It may not seem like it as you wait for a plane, or awards, or for a word with the coach. But it's a blink.

In the end, they will all walk away from this part of their lives. Their medals and ribbons will stay in a box somewhere.  They will be forgotten. 

The life lessons and experiences are what they will carry with them. 

Life is an adventure.  There are many roads to travel.  Gymnastics is only one of them.  

Soft Landing Meet 2019-20 Season GTC lv 9-10 team

Right now she is looking for a sign to know which way to go.

the thing most feared

I don't want her to die in a gym.  It's a feeling that doesn't have to be written. I don't want her to die; not there. 

No one has to say this but I am. I don't want her to walk into a room and never walk out.

She has traded a childhood of freedom for discipline and work. Hours, days, months, years of training. She has lived there; I don't want her to die there too.

Gymnastics is hard.
It's scary.
It hurts.

It is not for everyone.  But for those who find it as the framework for their lives, it is the only way.  It is their language, their culture.  It teaches them about the world and about themselves. 

And as much as I don't love the sport part of it, I have always feared the moment it ends for her.  Never once did I consider the alternative- that she could end.  Broken bones and pulled muscles... but even I didn't allow my fears to go beyond that.

She is who she is because of this sport and this sport IS because of others like her.  

So I say again to the moms and the dads, what words do we want to give to our daughters as they go to and from their work? 

Work harder, point your toes, run faster, take more turns, push harder. OR I love you. Have fun. Be brave, but not too brave. We are proud of you for all that you do. 

It is more likely one of us will die driving than one of them will die as a result of gymnastics.

 It is more likely your good-bye would be your last, not hers. 

But what if a million horrible things lined up.

Anxiety gives me a clear window. The world is dangerous. I am just "lucky" enough to always know that. It doesn't take a tragedy to remind me of how fast the clock is ticking.

If today was our last day together what would we have done differently? How would you have said good-bye?