Kicking and Screaming

Well, maybe not that dramatic.  But it felt that way.  Leaving Iowa was one of the hardest things I have ever done, even though it didn't seem real until we did it.  The date was just there, a few months away, then a few weeks, then a week, and all of a sudden we were gone.  That's kind of how my life goes, with three kids I really don't have time to prepare for anything, life just comes at me.

So when we left, we drove down to New Orleans.  Through many, many states, including Illinois this time.  When I think Illinois, I think Chicago.  I didn't know that the majority of it is farmland.  Anyway, by the time we left Iowa I was on a real high, energy kick, and driving down to the South was like being sucked into the Pit of Despair.  That is the only way I can describe it, because there is a negative energy vortex around New Orleans (note I didn't say bad or wrong, it's just negative), which is the complete opposite of places like Iowa or Sedona, Arizona, or Portland, Oregon, or places you have heard of that have very positive energy.


Without the negative vortex, there would be no positive, right?  Yes, right.  Without the negative there would be no Blues, Jazz, etc.  I digress.  It was like being dragged down into a tar pit, kicking and screaming all the way, like my soul was bucking the whole thing, pushing the experience away.  That made it very difficult to be "home".  I didn't fit anymore.  The old me that used to live there was completely gone.  Sure I appreciated the beauty of the swamp, and the Lake, and the skyline.

But it all seemed so dirty.  Iowans have pride, they keep their places clean.  Pride was missing.  The City That Care Forgot, right?  It annoyed me.  That people could care less what their homes and places of business and city looked like.  And then it was the way people treated my children.  All of a sudden I was in the land of  "children should be seen and not heard".  And the land of passive-aggressive women who can't stand up for themselves and say what they mean, which is what Iowa girls do.

So, ick.  It wasn't fun.  I am no longer a sweet Southern woman who keeps her mouth shut.  And I got in trouble a few times for it.  Glared at.  Made to feel like I was wrong for asking, and insisting on asking again, if a restaurant had gluten free items, and how they were cooked and prepared.  Or not bothering to care if my toddler wanted to nurse in front of other people.  Oh, the South.  Ick.

So now I live in Florida.  Still in a negative vortex, being sucked to the Earth that has no ground to it.  It's all limestone under Florida, which is why there are so many lakes.  Porous stuff under your feet does not make you feel grounded in any way.  Iowa was solid ground.  I felt solid there, here I just feel like a mass of jello, without a spine, or anything to help me feel grounded and guide me.

That's probably why I felt so scared when I started homeschooling.  It was a decision I made, not lightly, but one I want to stick to, because I feel that my daughter needed a hell of a lot more play at age five than she got in Kindergarten.  It was like walking off a cliff, the lack of structure, and guidance, and clue which way to go.

You know how I said life just comes at me?  The homeschooling thing was the same way.  Eric's parents came down to keep the older kids while we unpacked, for five days.  Suddenly we were in our house, with a pool, all moved in, and my decision was staring me in the face.  And now I have no spine.

So I looked for curriculum, and everything was too expensive or I didn't like it.  I don't think I was really looking to find anything anyway.  She was doing just fine playing with her brother every day.  And now she does her workbooks for phonics on her own, does her computer work, sometimes in Spanish, on her own, and makes up her own art projects.  For now that's what we're doing.

But I still have no spine.  If someone asked me what we are doing, I'd say we are unschooling until we find a better way to go about things, or until curriculum falls in our lap.  Really Elle is leading the way, and that is what I want the result of this grand experiment to be, a learning experience for her, directed by her, so that she becomes more self-motivated than she already is.  I think that's the best I can hope for her as an adult.  And it's what I wish I had done as a child.

Playing the academic game was easy for me.  Retention?  Yeah, right.  I can't tell you what I learned in 12 years of history class.  Today Elle recited back most of what she learned at co-op last Tuesday about fire safety.  She actually assimilated the information, processed it, and really grasps it.  That's more than I can say I did for high school physics!  I couldn't do a Calculus equation either if my life depended on it.

I think that's the thing that drew me most to homeschooling, when a child is drawn to a subject, she will learn everything she can, and retain much, much more than when it's assumed in a passive way, i.e. lecture and testing.  Much the same way that I am drawn to a subject and order 25 books on it, and retain most of what I read, because it is so interesting to me.  I really want that for my child, because it has taken me at least 30 years to be able to pursue what I want to learn about!

So for now we still need a math curriculum, and we read, and she writes.  Science experiments are catching bugs and lizards, the last dead lizard we were going to see how long it took to decompose.  At 35 I just learned how to hold a lizard.  Math is also done in the grocery store, pricing, and comparing to see which costs more or less.  Anyway we'll get there.  I just need to find my spine.