6th picture

From Sandra Dodd's blog:

Choose the sixth picture from the sixth picture folder on your computer and post it.

Well there it is, a thumbprint of Gary and a banjo.

Pros and Cons

"Of course, a child may not know what he may need to know in ten years (who does?), but he knows, and much better than anyone else, what he wants and needs to know right now, what his mind is ready and hungry for. If we help him, or just allow him, to learn that, he will remember it, use it, build on it. If we try to make him learn something else, that we think is more important, the chances are that he won't learn it, or will learn very little of it, that he will soon forget most of what he learned, and what is worst of all, will before long lose most of his appetite for learning anything."

~John Holt~ Teach Your Own

What I have been thinking about a lot lately is this pros and cons thing. Like on Monday Gary and I started to talk about some of the things that we could be doing if we weren't homeschooling. Like that career I went and did all of that schooling for, like that guitar and recording equipment that gather dust more than not. I think about the conversations that I wish that I could start and linger through and come to completion with. I think about the quiet that I long for like an long lost friend and the noise, the incessant tantrum of drums and growls and chatter that replace this silence.
And then I jump to school.
School may not be great but it could act as some sort of childcare.

And then Gary tells me to come to the Boulevard and drop the bills and the phone and jump in the car with the bikes and scooters and helmets and children and escape to the ocean that we are so blessed to live minutes from.
And so I went and the children rode off and there we were with our conversation that started and lingered and ended.
Our children are like wildflowers growing without abandon all over our messy house. They take over a green patch and then they move on to another part of the house and yard and they have things in their hair and food trailing behind them and muddy feet.
They are planted in my yard and free to roam.
Right now they are all outside, almost dark, helmets on running or riding through our dead end street with the neighborhood kids.
My child is missing his jacket and Nora is not wearing socks and the plate from last week's apples is growing mold on it in the far end of the backyard.
Nora is kicking the soccer ball to Zack and I can hear Sadie practicing the piano. She has chosen to stay in.
I think about the contagious smile that my nine year old daughter held on her face throughout her dance recital last week and the entire Folk Chorale concert on Sunday. She is so beaming with light and love and hope.
The trade off is clear and so I need to remember that this is about my family and in my family we make concessions for each other. Gary tells me to get in the car and I go and the kids want me to come play a game with them and I want to write here and now and they move on and we all give to each other.
Sometimes parenting can be so black and white. Put kids away and meet our needs or put our dreams away and meet their needs.
There is a happy middle ground here in our home.
In a discussion I had with some moms recently I remember that there was much talk about sacrifice and I felt bad because I felt like there are times it is a tremendous sacrifice that I make daily for these children.
I feel like there are times when I worry that my daughter's will feel that they have to do these same things and I want them to feel free to chose. I want them to feel free.
And in the clarity that comes with time I realize that for me it is a sacrifice but it is one that I am entirely ready to make.
And one that becomes second nature to all of us.