High tide.

Oh, we have the time to see what it feels like for our feet to get sucked into cool, wet mud. We won’t cringe or scream unless we want to, but we won’t….we’ll be too busy laughing and figuring out how to move again. We will be hunkering down to watch sand swirling in perfect circles. We will be standing halfway between dunes and the ocean, in the halfway sort of place that is half land, half water.

And if we wander down to the sea, if we walk that long distance, no one will say no. We can get messy, we can explore, we can try it out. When we fall into the warm, brown water, our clothes will stick to our bodies and show the outlines of all that we are and will become.

We have the chance to watch the tide race in, fifteen feet distant to ten to rising to cover our feet. We usher the water in, it follows us and we stop now and then and let it engulf our toes, calves, knees. The waves are small and unrelenting, they rush us closer to dry sand, to the sandcastles waiting to be built, the sunshine wanting to drench us.

Oh, that water is so warm, so unbelievably warm, and it’s water we’ve never seen so high, the tide usually pulling it so far from our eyes we can only imagine the water at the horizon. But we tried, and we walked far, and we laughed and struggled through the mud. The water rewarded us, following us home like a puppy, lapping at our heels. We watched waves roll in, one after the other, spitting perfect small seashells onto the sand. We marveled at the millions of years that caused the sand, the many, many moments that led us to this spot.

And it was beautiful.

Home education ‘school trips’

We are lucky to live in one of the best places in the country to home educate – there is a huge and varied population of home educators, including more than a handful of mamas from Country A. We have home education classes/groups/social meet ups available every day of the week, with everything from drumming to rock climbing to ….well, anything you can imagine. If it doesn’t exist, you can create it. We also have regular family meets on weekends throughout the year, a large not back to school picnic in September, and lots of other stuff going on.

Including trips.

Now, we have avoided the trip circuit as I felt the kids were a bit young, but now they are a great age. We went on our first trip yesterday. These are basically the equivalent of a school group having a field trip, and yesterday we visited a working farm. We were so not what those farmers expected.

Our children were not all one age. There were kids there from babies through to teenagers. Our ‘uniform’ was whatever individuals were comfortable in. We didn’t stay in strict groups and keep quiet.

The bit that made me laugh was the opening tour. None of our children are trained into staying in a neat, orderly group. As individuals and families, we are all very used to doing our own thing. So while some people stayed right with the farmer, a few children would be looking at nearby stuff. Whenever we moved locations, our group strung out into a huge, rambling, evolving thing, as children asked questions of each other, the adults, and the farmers. It was fantastic. A day that really reinforced our decision to home educate.

And we get to have every day like this, if we want, not just once or twice in the year. That’s awe inspiring to me. We can do what we want….whether hours of play at home, or out exploring the world. That is empowering.

On a side note, we met our first real live person who appears to replicate school at home. Of the hundreds of people I’ve met, no one uses a curriculum or makes their kids sit round the table for formal lessons. This seems a more common approach in Country A, where this lady was from. It was interesting to chat with her….albeit while Snort was covered in blood from a trampolining incident!

These trips will further open up our world. Because most home ed families are fairly autonomous, they give us a chance to meet people we might not otherwise know. An interesting thing is the influx of three and four year olds who would be starting school next September – people new to the idea of home educating, and lots of new potential friends for the kids. Coco made a particular friend of a four year old boy who apparently liked being bossed around, and they stuck together like glue all day. Snort played with older boys, got upset with them, and the six year old ringleader came over to sort it out with him, so he and Snort ended up playing together for a long time.

The flexibility of ages, interests, and abilities means that getting together with large groups of home ed families is always enjoyable. Even when your kid is bleeding everywhere – the immediate concern and support of other parents and children was awesome. It’s a group of people who are ultimately very accepting, and we are a collection of individuals accepted and celebrated for our quirks and joys. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Next week, assuming chicken pox doesn’t hit us up, we have our second trip ….to a fire station! TMD is so excited for the pottery class in the morning and the fire station in the afternoon she’s taken the day off work! I really hope we make it, but suspect the pox are on the way. Soon.

Where I come from.

My heritage is in listening to medical stories over dinner. This heart attack, that injury. Words spinning and dancing in the air, describing microwaving blankets to heat the up for boring night shifts. How the full moon makes everyone crazy. What this doctor said to that nurse, and always, the quiet thread of lives she has saved.

My heritage is in music, his stunning ability to sing and play the saxophone and just about any instrument he tried. Long walks in the woods, no place to go, all the time in the world to waste. Board games and letting me put make up on his face.

My heritage is lying in a bed while her older hands lightly trip across my skin, scratching my back and weaving stories together, telling me my future, the future of my sister. Sitting by her kitchen table, eating long johns and cheap hamburgers. Sitting in the dust, feet over water, fishing and listening to the rhythm of the world.

My heritage is in his books, his silences. Reader’s Digest condensed novels handed to me like some people offer seven year olds candy. Big bowls of popcorn, almond praline ice cream. Hose nose shines from my mother’s face, my sister’s.

My heritage, too, lies within myself. Hours alone in the woods, in fantasy worlds, climbing over fences into areas that were off limit. Endless filled notepads, playing with little people on my bookshelf and creating worlds for them, composing music during other empty hours and being absorbed and whole.

Figuring out what authentic means. Motherhood and me-ness. Just being.

I read a status update on Facebook by an unschooling page I follow. It was essentially all about how difficult it can be to support others, to inspire them, and always have to push your own dreams aside. That it is okay to never achieve your dreams if you help others. The line that really hit me was something like, ‘Sometimes I feel I will always live on the edge of a black pit, helping others climb of their black pits.’ That resonated. Strongly.

The author finished the post by saying hey, that’s okay! This is the good life.

That bit didn’t so much resonate.

Parenting requires, no, DEMANDS more squashing of self than I could have ever prepared for. Of course, I transform, I submerge myself with abandon into this new life, mostly. I want my children to be more courageous and creative than I am, and I feel that I play an instrumental role in allowing them to explore, to be who they are, to experiment and wonder. I want them to be curious and engaged and philosophers. Scientists. Artists. Literary giants.

I don’t begrudge them these things. Sometimes I question myself and my own motives, wondering if I am already trying to live vicariously through them. I pull myself back. No one deserves that pressure, we all need to be our own selves in the most authentic way we can. And that doesn’t come from other people telling us how to live or what to think.

So this status update made me angry, and made me sad, and made me THINK.

Then a lone sliver, a wisp as white and frail as anything else, floated across my mind. That one of my happiest and most fulfilling times in life was at camp. And my job, my life, was about inspiring children, young people, and adults. To help foster an environment where children could play and learn how to be themselves and take risks in a supportive environment. My life was all about helping others, and fuck, was I happy.

But I can’t lie. The campers at that place fucking loved me, and that fuelled me. I was able to be more fully, authentically me there than I had ever been anywhere else. The crazier I dressed, the weird impulse to shave my head, the outrageous singing and making a fool of myself – the more me I was, the more people loved me. And so, of course, that sweetest of lessons helped me grow and be joyful.

I feel on the cusp now, but it isn’t the same cusp I know and am old frenemies with. This cusp has that black pit on one side. I don’t know about the the other side.

The grand dreams, the feeling of factual endless possibilities, I don’t think it is there anymore. Those things may actually be in my own black pit. I think of my best friends I’ve known fifteen years, longer. How we all started with big dreams, and the certainty they would come true. I’ve watched people’s dreams deflate, and I’ve mostly felt sad about that. Because I know what we are all capable of.

But now a quiet voice says, find a third way. You don’t have to always give of yourself so constantly and consistently, this is a season in your life. When that voice is pushy, it asks uncomfortable questions about what sort of model I am being for my children. When it is melancholy, it asks what sort of life I am living for myself. Can I look up to me?

How am I so good at inspiring others, at believing wholeheartedly what I say, but then I sit here, in my tattered and comfortable slippers, perched on the edge of a black pit?

Maybe it is the time to look for an overgrown path. It’s small, dusty. Meandering. I’m not sure where it leads, but I do know it is away from that pit.

Or maybe it is still the time to sit here. Trying to rest and regroup when I get small moments, stretching my neck and checking my supplies. Casting my eyes about for that path, debating if I even want that path, or something else. I’d like my black pit edge to have a stream for my feet to rest in, but then I don’t want it to be too comfortable.

So I sit here, helping my children be and believe in themselves.

While I wonder who I am. That old me, who is still in Country A, laughing in thunderstorms and driving golf carts wildly? Eating ice cream in the summer twilight?

The impossible me who was brave enough to move across the world for true love?

The new and older me, who is often achey and short tempered?

I think I’m all those, but I feel I’m something else, too. Maybe my dreams have shifted, maybe I don’t want to chase them, maybe I’m just taking a breather. Maybe it’s easier to try to forgive myself for not trying at this moment in time. Maybe it’s okay to not know. Maybe it’s fine to let the sun warm my back, to sip water, to extend a hand to others. Maybe it’s not my time. Not yet.

Maybe it will be, soon.

I need to remember how much I appreciate these 2.5 hours.

I dreaded it, this day called today. Coats and sweaters and shoes and hats and backpacks and a walk through the cold to the doctor. Loading kids in and out of cars as we shopped for compost and short style underpants.

But all the things I would have missed!

Standing on the path outside the doctor’s, making our shadows do various body shapes from gymnastics. Watching them form and dissolve with the shifting clouds.

Snort’s exhuberation at finding chilli pepper seeds at the shop, so we can grow plants like the ones in Plants Vs Zombies. The stupidly fun trying on of Spiderman crocs, as the kids chat with with a random lady and we sit on the floor in the middle of the aisle. Buying an insane amount of balloons for TMD’s birthday.

A morning out of the house, only errands and standing in lines and putting coats off and on. But also so much more.

An old friend, my old life, knocks at the door.

Got a very unexpected email a few weeks back, asking if TMD, myself, or both of us would like to direct the camp we used to run. Just for this summer. With an old friend.

I’m getting to the point in my parenting journey I’ve heard so much about – the mythical, magical three year point when a set of twins is somewhat easier than a singleton would be. My kids are absolute best friends and play together all the time. They often get absorbed in their own world and don’t need me as much (unless, of course, I should decide to sit down and relax). This leaves me with more time.

More time to feel the exhaustion of the past 3.5 years. More time to realise there may be space for me to return more, the Existere I was before children. There may be room for me to have some reemerging selfhood right alongside my role as a mother and home educator. Or at least there will be room in theory, if I ever push past my inertia. As soon as I get two seconds, or two hours, free, all I want to do is lie in bed and watch The People’s Court, you know?

I’ve thought on and off about the offer to return to camp. If we were living in Country A, I have no doubt we would be camping professionals. It is what life was before we moved, an encompassing lifestyle, a fun lifestyle, a demanding lifestyle.

I don’t think there is any way to make our current life and family compatible with the intensity of summer camp again (laugh if you will, but at any level of working at camp, from counsellor through to director, it requires 24 hours of your time, every day). Can I go on my own with the children? No, not if I want to actually accomplish anything. Maybe as staff director I could hack it, but then the kids are away from TMD all summer.

Could we afford for TMD to take a three month sabbatical? No. Even with her paltry salary, it’s still more than camp would pay. Especially with the exchange rate. And not to mention there’s no way TMD would get a visa at this point.

So I will stay here this summer. But if my friend does go back to camp, I will imagine a life where we go to visit her, where things smell like campfire smoke and green, where children are living and laughing and discovering themselves, where sleeping outside for months at a time only makes you want to sleep outside forever.

Camp.

The who-gets-your-kid convo that some people have at Thanksgiving.

I was sucked in to a particularly ….oh, I can’t think of the right adjective. That one word that will hang, shining and bright, symbolic of the emotions I want to portray. So let’s keep it simple. Let’s just say I was involved in a conversation yesterday.

The main players were myself, Mil, Bil/Sil, and HippyFamily…even though only Mil and I were actually there. I’ll leave out the main jist of the judgemental craziness for another post and focus on this point: who are you trusting to raise your children should you and your partner both die?

Not a pleasant thing to think about, but necessary. TMD and I were particularly worried about the safety and safeguarding of our own unique family configuration, and therefore had an explicit and detailed will – one for each of us – drawn up when I was pregnant.

Bil and Sil have chosen to leave their children in the care of HippyFamily. As far as I know, that has not changed. HippyFamily were selected because of ‘how we parent very similarly to them.’ Meaning, when our first niece was a newborn, they wore her in a sling….and HippyFamily introduced them to slings. Obviously it’s a bit more complex than that, but we can safely say the two families, in addition to being good friends, were united in their love of attachment parenting.

Roll on four years and their parenting philosophies really could not be more different. We are very similar to HippyFamily. In a nutshell, they are still attachment parenting, and they are unschooling. Just like us. Whereas Bil and Sil put their kids in nursery/had a nanny from the start, are often out of the country and away from the kids, and are pushing a very competitive, academic based lifestyle. Fine. To each their own.

But the conversation was Mil saying, ‘Yes, but if Bil and Sil died, HippyFamily would have to raise the children as Bil and Sil have been doing, wouldn’t they? I know we are too old, but if you left Snort and Coconut to us, we would do our best to make sure we raised them to the letter the exact same way you were raising them.’

All obvious comments about how it would be impossible to raise a child exactly the same as another person, I don’t know that I agreed with her.

I throw my hands up and wholeheartedly admit I am in the same camp of thought as HippyFamily – we choose to raise our kids similarly, which is very different from Bil/Sil. And perhaps that clouds my opinion and influences me more than I realise. I don’t know.

But I sort of think if you want your child to be happy, if you want them to be raised as one of the family, then there is a lot of give and take required. The lifestyle my nieces have and will continue to have is dramatically incompatible with HippyFamily. I don’t even know if they could mesh.

I believe that a parent has a responsibility to pick someone you trust to raise the children. Not someone that has to follow an exact script you leave behind (and I don’t know about Sil and Bil’s beliefs on this, so from here on out it’s all me), but someone you know will do the best they can. For us, that meant choosing someone with a similar outlook on life, that we KNOW will do her best even if she may not make the same choices as us.

Would I like Snort and Coconut to remain out of the school system? Obviously, yes. But more than that, I would want them to be with their aunt, who is fun, passionate, smart, and loving. She would offer them a different life than the one they would have with us, but let’s face it – if Snort and Coco had a life without us, it would always be different than it would have been.

So who has to adapt? Does the new family and caregivers have to change their way of life to incorporate a new child or two (though of course you can always choose a guardian who IS very similar to you, and have discussions about these things just in case)? Does the child have to ‘fit in’ with the new family? In the best of all possible worlds, all people involved would live and love together and make the situation work. Because, quite frankly, they have to.

And I stand firm by the choice we have made, by the beliefs that led us to make the choice. While we are here with our children, we make the decisions we make because we believe they are best for our family. And one of those decisions is who we trust with the monumental task of raising our children should the worst happen. We have to trust that once our children are in someone else’s care, that person will make decisions they believe are best for our children as well.

I hope all these thoughts stay hypothetical for all of us with children.

Adoption.

Since I know there is at least one other lesbian family that reads this blog and may choose to do a step parent adoption, let me outline our process:

First, we contacted social services to get put on their wait list. After an eternity, we were finally allocated a social worker and also gave permission for a student social worker to help. Our expectation was that it would be a fairly brief process, since this social worker needed to complete the work in under two months. Meetings were every fortnight.

First meeting: the social worker and student came to our house. This was really just an introduction to each other and the process. The kids interrupted loads! Ha. The plan was laid out – the main objective was completing the adoption report. It was divided into manageable chunks; we would complete and email it to them prior to each visit, and the visits would be spent answering any additional questions.

Second visit: The student came on her own. Spent about an hour answering her questions, chatting,etc. This time we sat round the table as we thought the kids might interrupt less….it sort of worked. Ha.

Third visit: the student and social worker came. Again, they only had a few questions about the paperwork (as by this time we had Sussex they liked long, chatty essays for each question!). We discussed the next steps – they are chasing up various references (whoa, TMD needed a lot. Every position where she’d ever worked with children, three personal references, info from the fertility clinic, police check, etc)…. The fertility clinic, in particular, are being an ass. The lady in charge of the sperm is always shocking at getting back to people, but this time I’m seriously annoyed as if we can’t prove the donor has no legal rights, TMD can’t adopt. Ugh. Gave the social worker the contact details as I suspect an official request may bear more weight.

Next step is waiting to hear from the social workers regarding submitting our official application to the court for the adoption. The court then schedules a hearing within three weeks or so. Social workers want us to wait till the report is totally finished so we have no delays before court.

Fourth and final planned visit : cancelled as they don’t need to see us. Our last visit was actually really nice….they told us they may not need another, so I made sure to say a warm thank you for how respectful they have been of our family. We could not have asked for two nicer workers, particularly the student, who I suspect is actually the one doing all the work for our case! The social worker said it was really nice to just ‘get to see a really happy family for once.’

I will say I also asked about the process to foster or adopt further children from the care system. Got a detailed answer and this is not entirely off the table. This would be something we have to think very deeply about, as well as the impact it would have on Snort and Coconut. The average placement age is three years – and by that age, the potential for attachment disorders is just massive. Also not sure how the home educating stuff may influence their willingness to place a child with us. All stuff to think about for the future…

Will obviously update you all as things move forward. Maybe we will have a virtual adoption party! You can bring the streamers and balloons, I’ll bring the dressing up box and the cheese. Deal?

Friendship, racism, family.

My sister has banned my mother from seeing her Facebook updates for ‘an extended period of time.’ Blondie posted a picture of her with some people she used to work with, who all happen to be in Big City here in Country B (Blondie has just moved here! She’s coming to us next weekend and I can’t wait!). The guys in the picture were not white.

My mom sent her a text message saying to be careful because she and my stepdad saw the picture and think the guys look ‘scary.’ Blondie was understandably pissed and now my mother has lost her most valuable stalking tool.

Mom called me this morning to try to get me on her side, as ‘you are a mother now and you know how I worry!’ I said I thought she was lucky she had daughters who believed most people were good people, regardless of skin colour. Then came five of the most racist, misguided minutes of my life.

I tried to reason with her, but things got more and more surreal. So I switched topic. ‘Hey, we are going to a concert of Ghanian music this afternoon!’ She was like, ‘Awesome, that will be fun!’

Apparently old dogs can learn new tricks. She is now more scared of brownish people than blackish people. I pointed that we are very good friends with people of various skin hues and we love them all. She was quiet.

I am lucky to like people, to have a sister who likes people. I am lucky to have children with brown, pink, black, white friends, who judge people not on skin colour but on who they have the most fun with. I hope that never changes.

Transitions and gymnastics.

Well, it’s that time again: the end of term is in two weeks, and we need to decide now if Snort will continue with football. For a long time it has been apparent that he goes for his friends, not the sport (not that there’s anything wrong with that!). Increasingly he just wants to sit on my lap and wait for the class to be over so that we can get to the good part – all having lunch together before playing for a good hour or so.

Snort has mentioned he wants to go to gymnastics, but he wants all his football friends to go with him. During preliminary discussions today, I’ve tried to explain the choice is football and old friends, versus gymnastics and new friends. And he is saying gym. He so badly wants to start gym that he doesn’t want to go to the final two weeks of football.

I’m a bit sad because I’ve struck up good friendships with the other parents/grandparents, and because Snort really loves his friends. I know part of life is moving on, and all bar one of these kids is starting school next year so we will be ‘losing’ them anyway, but I am still wondering if this will cause major upset when he understands that football is properly bye bye. But on the flip side, a key part of my parenting/educational philosophy is being child led. If he wants gym rather than football, so be it. The way gym is set up, it’s more difficult to make good friends there, but I’m sure there will be other regular attenders. We will continue talking about it this week, but I do believe some desperately sad friendship times are ahead (though of course we will still try to see his friends, but it certainly is unlikely to be with such regularity).

On the gym front, well, I have a lot to say that is Coconut related. But we will leave it with saying that she is getting back to pre-broken arm enthusiasm. She asks most days if we can go do gymnastics, and this last week she decided she didn’t need Bunny anymore (Bunny being a constant since she broke her arm, though she never had Bunny before her accident). She is thrilled that one of her home ed friends has joined her class, and in fact she has made two other good friends from the gym….one of which I am going to invite for a play date when we see them this week.

Early last week we watched some floor routines on YouTube and she spent the rest of the week doing naked floor routines on the lounge floor, then asking for medals (no clue where she got the medal thing, as we only watched the routines!). She calls herself The Amaaaaaazing Coconut.

Coconut literally spends most of her time at home upside down. We are talking headstands about 90% of the time. As it happens, the grandad of one of Snort’s football friends has a daughter who trained and competed with Coconut’s gym 25 years ago. His daughter competed internationally, and at age twelve was preparing to compete in the next Olympics, when she was sixteen, and in fact went to the Olympics at twelve as an assistant or something. THEN SHE BROKE HER FUCKING NECK.

She was okay. Not elite gymnastics okay, but she actually carried on with smaller competitions and taught gymnastics throughout her university years. Apparently when she was a kid every fucking second was spent at the gym – the expectation was that she would formally train every day from 6-9 pm and all day Sundays, plus self directed training at school. Her schooling was all jacked up, she was very perfectionist, she developed an eating disorder. I suppose home educating eliminates one of those factors should Coconut (or Snort) have the aptitude and enthusiasm needed to train at that level, but talking to him had me worried.

He was all, ‘Yes, from the time my daughter was about three, she was always upside down and throwing herself around.’ Given that Coconut taught herself forward rolls when she was one – a mere few weeks after learning to walk, and as a baby was often trying to stand on her head, it made me feel cautious. She is definitely a big perfectionist already, and that is certainly a trait I am trying to help her tone down. Listening to this dude talk about eating disorders and broken necks was an eye opener…..though equally, he said his daughter loved the gym and felt joyful there.

So, I guess all things to be aware of. Given that the kids are only three I know all of this probably makes me sound like a crazy, overachieving stage mum, but still… I will wait and watch with interest.