When I Grow Up

“Nafisa, do you like history?” Zach asked a fourteen year old friend who was here tonight.

“I do like history.”

“Then you are going to LOVE the volcano video.”

“Zach, honey,” I jump in, “that video isn’t about history.”

“But it has a lot of historical stuff in it.”

“Well, history, as a subject in school, is really about the history of people.  The history of the Earth is generally considered science.”

“Oh.  Do you like science, Nafisa?”

Ha!  I love it.  He doesn’t know if it’s history or science, but he knows it’s cool.

Today was just cool all around.  Here was our schedule:

1. Running on the track, playing soccer, and climbing on a playground structure (1 hour)
2. Memorizing a poem about mistakes and talking about what the poem meant (30 minutes total, done in the car before and after the track)
3. Hanging out with Dr. Jim, who is helping Zach learn to deal with his anxiety and improve his social skills, while Ezra and I hung out with Wendy at Starbucks (1 hour)
4. Lunch and basketball with Kathiana, who speaks exclusively Spanish to the boys (2 hours)
5. Ezra working with the occupational therapist from the public school while Zach played on the playground with his friends (1 hour)
6. Playdate (1 hour)
7. Dinner and National Geographic video on volcanoes. (2 hours)

At the end of the video, Zach got up, arched his back, clapped his hands, and announced, “That was A-MAZING.”

Which I took to be a pronouncement on the whole day.

Yesterday was a different kind of day, with reading and grammar and tallying and handwriting.  We also played two Native American games we got from the Children’s Museum, finished book three of the Narnia series and did a lot of indoor soccer and wrestling.  Some days look more like “school” than others, and it’s going to be a lot better for me if I can stop trying to decide which days are “good” and which are “bad.”

Wendy reminded me as we walked around the track this morning of who I’ve said I hope the boys will be, and what I value about childhood and education and family.  And just like that, all of the angsty self-doubt of last night disappeared.

The boys may not learn Latin, but they are excited about connecting with people in Spanish.  And they may not learn about the world in a “disciplined” way, but they are in awe of it. And they may not fit anybody’s mold of what normal looks like, but they are growing up, becoming who they are called to be.

I just need to stay away from meetings — and sandboxes –where I get confused about why we are homeschooling and why we are doing it the way we are.   If you hear me freaking out again, remind me of who I want to be when I grow up. And then remind me that it takes courage to get there.