The Before & The After

   It comes to me at the oddest moments. In those little bits of time that I have to myself, where, despite the noise around me, whatever task I'm performing has my undivided attention and I can be alone with my thoughts. Today it was while I was slicing oranges- a mundane task at best. And something that I've never really done before. I mean, of course I've sliced oranges before, but in the past it has been for an outside purpose: fruit salad for a potluck picnic, a kid's school party, after practice snacks. This time, all I was doing was simply slicing oranges for my children's breakfast.

And it came to me then. 

How different my life is now.

In the Before Time, I would desperately cling to sleep every morning, even as I heard my children waking for school. I would call out to my older children to stop bickering and to help their younger siblings get breakfast. It was only after 30 or so minutes of laying in bed, wishing that I had another hour to sleep, that I would exhale sharply and swing my feet over the side of the bed and fumble my way to the opening of my day.

In the Before Time, I would sit myself on the sofa while my children ate their breakfasts and listen to their chatter that would eventually devolve into an argument and between sips of coffee tell them to hurry up and get dressed and get their school things. At five minutes before we had to leave in order to get everyone to school on time, I would throw on a marginally acceptable outfit (just in case of a freak accident, otherwise it would have been my pajamas all the way) and rush everyone out the door like a stream of Army paratroopers jumping out of the back of a C-130.

In the Before Time, I would drop them off and I would go back home and I would have 3 hours to myself (the youngest was still in preschool and I hadn't yet started working as a substitute at the school) to do whatever I wanted. Of course that probably should've meant that I was cleaning or organizing or preparing for a healthy dinner. Instead, I usually plopped myself on the couch, coffee in hand, to watch TV and knit or journal. I gave myself a wide berth when it came to grace for myself, after all, I hadn't really been alone since 2002.

In the Before Time, I would laze my way through the afternoon, usually napping when the preschooler napped. It really was an embarrassment of riches to be able to do so. Then I would pick up the olders from school, we would fight our way through homework and dinner prep time, which more often than not would result in my exasperation and frustration and we would eat out. Like I said, an embarrassment of riches.

I squandered so much time.
And time is something you can never get back.
Once it's spent, it's gone.
[Insert all the other adages about wasting time here]

But now in the broken pieces of the Before Time that lay at my feet, broken pieces that I was always assumed we would use to build our life back to what it once was, I find that I enjoy the slowness of it. I treasure the moments when my still-sleepy girl pads into my room, lifts the covers that cocoon me  and tucks herself tight against my side and we lay in the warmth under the quilt just simply resting with one another. I take those moments and whisper to her how smart and funny I think she is and we quietly giggle together until one of the middle brothers shakes off his sleep and shuffles into my room to say "good morning" and then runs off to feed himself because he has ADHD and simply cannot wait now that his body is trying to make up for the years when it did not grow. She remains by my side and I breathe her in, this female gift that I had begged God for for so many years. Then another middle brother comes in and he is still young enough to want to tuckle himself up against my other side and he squeezes me and without fail says "I love you mom" and I stroke his still-soft forehead and I say it right back and I squeeze him tight. I don't dread getting out of bed (although a little more sleep wouldn't hurt) because our day starts quiet and slow and it starts in warm togetherness rather than in cold separateness.

They harangue me (gently and with laughter) until I'm willing to surrender the warmth of the bed (or until my bladder can't wait any longer. Hey, after five kids, I'm lucky it's still where it belongs in my rearranged-by-big-babies-insides) to throw on a sweater and make them breakfast.

Now we are in the After Time.
The life that I never wanted.
But the life that I needed.


And so here we are, full circle, back at slicing oranges. Because this simple act is one that I wouldn't have taken in the Before Time. I simply would have spent more money on the tiny, easy to peel Clementines and they could just do it themselves. The After Time is where my heart is learning to bend toward serving rather than making my own life easier. It is where I learn that these slow mornings are gifts, a reclaiming of time that I had squandered before. It is where I learn that taking time to do things completely (instead of taking shortcuts just to be done) is something to be delighted in. It is where we have time to sit and enjoy and read God's Word together (and wiggle and bicker and make funny faces at one another and bother each other) and pray together before our school day starts in earnest. The After Time has afforded us what the Before Time in all its Earthly riches never could: each other.

Life isn't perfect-far from it actually- but these moments and my realization of how important they are, make it quite beautiful.

~M~

The "H" Word

When The Big Thing happened to us, our life was going pretty smoothly. My husband had worked hard and had arrived at a point in his career where he was earning a good wage and had a great benefits package and a nice chunk of vacation time (not that we have ever taken a vacation). We had five kids in a small private school and I was finally approaching my dream of having entire school days to myself.

To organize my home.

To cook the elaborate meals that everyone else seemed to have time for.

To knit and journal and craft.

To run errands without the ball of noise that usually surrounded me.

To visit coffee shops and bakeries.

To meal plan and grocery shop in peace.

To have "me" time.

To be normal.

I grew up in a household where dad went off to work, the kids went off to school and mom stayed at home doing whatever moms did at home while the children were in school. If you've ever read a Ramona book, that was pretty much exactly my childhood (only I was Beezus, Ramona was a little brother and we lived in Central Illinois, not Oregon). My visions of motherhood, once I had come to terms with the fact that I wasn't destined to be single forever, were not much different that that which I had observed of my own household as I was growing up.

I would have exactly two children.

The first would be a girl.

Followed four years later with a boy.

My husband would have a stable, well paying job.

I would stay home and raise my darlings.

At five years old they would start Kindergarten.

I would stay at home and bake things.

The children would attend school until graduation.

They would leave the nest.

Stuff in between.

Retirement.

Of course, all of this would happen in my life without the mess my own parents made at the end of my time in high school. But yeah, this was the plan. Until I had a son first. And then three more. And then a daughter. So already my plans were being messed with-but aside from a couple of false starts, we eventually had them all in school and for one glorious semester, I was living the dream. I was even able to take a part time job in the preschool of the kids' school for fun money. And then The Big Thing happened and my world changed. For the first year after The Big Thing we were blessed to have a pastor that understood and cared enough about us to allow my kids to experience some normalcy in their lives. It was a pure gift and a huge blessing for them to all to stay at their private school so that The Big Thing wouldn't hurt them as quickly and as much as it could have. For that I will ever be grateful.

Knowing this grace would definitely not happen again, we had to make plans for the next school year. The public schools here aren't the best, and we had a terrible experience with the elementary school and its principal before we decided to send all of the children to the private school, so for us, public school was not an option. We had to start seriously considering the H-word.

Homeschool.

The thought of it made me sick to my stomach. We had dabbled before in homeschooling a couple times- once with my oldest for Kindergarten, and once again for my second oldest in second grade. It was a nightmare. I have ADD and I didn't consider myself disciplined enough to be responsible for my children's schooling. Feeding and general care? Got it. But school? Gah. No.way. With my oldest, it was difficult, even in Kindergarten, because he is a typical first born: he loves order and having a plan and knowing what is happening every half an hour.  Couple that with the fact that he loves everything about being in school, from the standing in line to the little desks to the seat work, having a mother who-if pressed into homeschooling-leans more toward the Charlotte Mason way of doing things which means no real schedule and definitely no seat work. 

Like I said: difficult.

When we attempted it again for my second oldest's second grade year, it was another disaster. I had two younger kids at home and underfoot and he was (and is) a stubborn student. In fact, he is the exact opposite of his older brother in that he hates school. Hates everything about it and would happily exist living under my roof, illiterate, for the rest of his life if not for the fact that we have made it clear that this is not an option and if he doesn't want to be homeless when he is an adult, he's got to do the learning thing. 

Like I said: difficult.

So when faced with this option, I cried. I don't mean that I silently cried inside. I actually bawled my eyes out. Maybe even more than once. This time, the prospect of being the one responsible for their education wasn't even the issue. I wasn't scared of homeschooling. Even in the short ten years since we had attempted it the first time, the resources for homeschoolers have expanded and people of all walks of life (not just nutty separatists) have started taking the education of their children back home. Loneliness was of mild concern, but really it was my own loneliness that worried me. No, what made me cry and throw a fit was something quite different this time.

I was mad. I was angry that I was losing my grip on my plans. I was upset that my expectations for my life weren't panning out. That I was going to miss out on my alone time. That this was happening to me. Me. Me. Me. What about me?! Did God not care that this was going to change my life? That it was going to push me far outside of my comfort zone and make me face things inside of myself that I didn't want to see? That it was going to challenge the way I had become a lazy parent?*

Oh He cared. He cared a great deal. He still cares.

And that is why He allowed it to happen. Because doing things in my own strength and with my own plans equaled success in my eyes. If I could do it (anything) on my own, it was work I could be proud of. The "I made this" is strong in me. It was (and from time to time still is) a stronghold that needed to be broken- a place in my heart and life where I had replaced God with hard work and a can-do attitude. A stubborn rebellion to His whispers of "Let me show you what I can do through you, flawed as you are, silly girl."

Over the last six or so months, He has shown me that there is no way I can do this on my own. That most days it is Him and only Him that pulls me out of my depression long enough to teach lessons to my younger kids and assign work to my older kids (we won't talk about the two weeks of "fun school" we did on my bed because I couldn't bring myself to even leave it).
It hasn't been without its problems: a few months into it, I realized that, while doing the work was not a problem for him, my oldest child was becoming a shell of himself-squirreling himself away in his room to do lessons, sleeping, and occasionally reading, then making an appearance long enough to whip the other four kids into a frenzy just to disappear back into his room, leaving me with the aftermath and hurt feelings he caused. My husband and I discussed and with much worry and anguish and copious amounts of prayer, we enrolled him into the second semester at the local public school. He is slowly returning to himself- the outgoing, happy kid that I know so well. He is less annoying to his siblings and while some of the schoolwork there isn't very challenging for him (two of his 10th grade level classes are covering topics that he learned in 6th grade), it is in the trusting God with his heart and mind that I have found strength in our decision. I have no Earthly idea if we've done the right thing, but I trust that God sees us and knows that in our hearts, we are trying to do the best in each kids' situation.

And that is what it is about, isn't it?

Doing what is best for them. 

Trusting in God. 

Knowing He has my heart in His hands.

In the end, homeschooling hasn't been that bad. Though my sarcastic, wry (and stunningly honest) answer to those who ask me how I like it is "It isn't my favorite" doesn't always belie that fact.  I now try to quickly add "But it's growing on me!" at an attempt to not sound completely like Debbie Downer. This year, I gave myself very specific parameters when it came to choosing curriculum with the hope that whatever job my husband eventually acquired would afford us to again be able to send them back to private school. Alas, that didn't happen, so homeschooling is our day to day for the foreseeable future. The problem with the curriculum is that after a while, it is humdrum and boring and difficult to teach if you aren't teaching a classroom full of children. Next year, I plan to stretch myself a bit more and really find things to engage myself my kids. 

And next year, I hope to have some of the angst and worry that's been driven by deep depression (and a few other physical issues) that has gone untreated for such a long time. My hope is that once I am out of the fog, I will be a better teacher.

A better mother.

A better everything.

~M~

*Please do not read this that I think that non-homeschooling parents are lazy. I am not passing judgment on anyone in any way that they choose to educate their kids. I am definitely not a homeschooling snob who thinks that if you aren't doing it yourself, you're doing it wrong. I know that folks like that exist, but I am not one of them. No, this line is purely about me. And it is a post for another day that I will explore what it has come to mean to me to be a "lazy parent".