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@Farmhouse_Schoolhouse

A glimpse at boyhood. Tougher than hickory wood, more fragile than a butterfly’s wing, faster than a firefly. At least, that’s how he described it yesterday before he called down from the treetop, “how many years of warriors and trees and poems do I have left?” A decade ago I was scraping my knees raw in daily prayer over this bright eyed little toddler that climbed the tallest furniture, poked forks into electrical outlets and bit babies in the church nursery. I spent my days either snatching him back from impending doom or battling the molten fury of his toddler tantrums. It was hard to stay mad at him since he inherited both tendencies from yours truly. Today I watched him knit in his grandmother’s chair. I saw the cuts and scrapes and bruises on his legs, testimonies of trees conquered and races run. His sandy hair lifted with the breeze that floated in from the window while his fingers practiced a tarantella in the circles of yarn. No one ever assumes that I am his mother. When he was a baby, strangers would see his milky white skin pressed up against my brown skin and they’d name me “Nanny, maid, babysitter.” But he called me “mama” and today he is wearing my shoes. I am thinking about the contrast of our skin and the compatibility of our hearts when he calls me to attention. “Mom? I was just thinking that I don’t have to measure years running out on me. Childhood isn’t losing years. It’s building them. Just like you told us.” His legs dangle and quiver with pent up energy when the words drop before me. He is holding on to the hope that his thoughts are true. “Yes. It’s not sand running out of the hour glass. It’s sand piling up. I’m so thankful I get to see it,” I affirm. He nods then changes subject quickly, asking if he can make cookies before lunch. An hour later I’m yelling out the window “Do not climb on the roof!” I am learning that those danger cravings take more than a decade to mature into healthy risk taking. He races toward the back hollow and into the wooded cathedral to whisper his prayers and continue building what very few can see. He is wearing my shoes.
We were driving between therapy appointments last week, a heavy silence in the car, when the youngest started giggling. “Remember that time with the blue jay war?” Giggles all around. “Remember the Heron that chased Mom?” More laughter. “Remember when we were running and the baby bunnies shot up from the ground and ran all around us?” They began talking over one another about the mangrove hunts, the great raccoon mystery of 2015, the skeleton walk, Hootie Owl’s broken house, ferngully and a hundred other secret places, names and memories that belong to us. Wasn’t that the vision all along? To fill the wells of their imaginations with beauty and memory and meaning and relationship? We’re in a really tough season in life right now, but wherever we go, we carry the beauty with us. The memory of wind never leaves our hair, the sun never leaves our skin, the waves never cease to lap around our ankles. We are mud-luscious folk. We memorized it into our cells. Those muddy fort days are in our dreams. If we need a reminder we need only drop the bucket into the well and refresh ourselves. The boys reminisced all the way to the next appointment and by the time I pulled in, tears were streaming down my face. My youngest unbuckled himself and threw himself at me. “I’m happy too, mama.” I hugged him tight tight. The eldest made the connection first. “Isn’t it funny how our best stories are from our hardest, worst nature days? We didn’t give up and we found the adventure and the treasure and the story. You don’t get the story unless you keep going.” He was right, so we opened the door and kept going.
Boy: “I want to read about wildness and courage today.” Me: “Any ideas?” Boy: “bark of the bog owl and green ember and dark sea of darkness and the yearling and swallows and amazons and treasure island and well, you know, all the other places we’ve visited together. “ Me: “Yes. I do know.” Boy: “I think that’s my favorite part about homeschooling— the knowing together. I think if we know together, we’ll do more together. Do you know what I mean? We can’t just sit around when we know something together. Am I saying it right?” Me: “Do you mean that we can take action together?” Boy: “Yes!!! I don’t know if that was an ‘on purpose decision’ in homeschooling...” Me: “Boy, it’s at the very heart of it.” Boy: “I wondered.” ❤️❤️❤️❤️🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼🙌🏼
Today we left speech therapy feeling pretty down. We decided to stop off for haircuts and groceries before heading home. The older boys were bouncy and energetic. I was reading labels and feeling the weight of a hundred things on my shoulders. A voice broke through, “I always feel so sorry for mothers today,” it said. I looked up and blinked stupidly at the woman beside me. “Pardon?” I asked, wondering what terrible holiday or anniversary fell on October 9th. A school shooting? A bombing? She laughed and jerked her chin towards the boys who were trying to arm wrestle in the middle of the aisle. “No school today. I feel so bad for all these mothers stuck with their kids all day in the middle of the week.” She gave me a sympathetic smile as if to say, “I see you zombie mom of 4.” My youngest had been standing close to me all this time. His sensory sensitivities were on overdrive between the haircut trimmings left on his skin, the exhaustion from working hard at therapy and the painfully bright lighting in that aisle of the store. He looked up at me and smiled. SMILED. I turned the smile back at the stranger. “I didn’t realize school was out today. We homeschool and I love getting to be with my kids every day. Not all moms get to do that and I don’t take it for granted.” Then I leaned down and looked him in the eyes and said it again, “I love being with you.” She found us half an aisle later and commented again, “I loved being with mine too. It’s just all the unpleasantness that grated on me. Kids. You know how it is.” She waved goodbye. I turned to the boys and said it again, “I love being with you, even if you act in unpleasant ways sometimes.” My third born didn’t miss a beat, “mom, we love you, even if you act in unpleasant ways sometimes.” I laughed so hard. I WAS the unpleasant one today (and yesterday). We came home, read aloud and played with the kitten. I snuck in a call to a friend about how hard some days are and that rascally third born overheard our conversation. “Mom, habit training is tough, isn’t it? I’m praying for you. We’ll get there together.” ❤️ no, I am not stuck, I am resting in grace, especially on the hard days. ✨✨
It’s been well over a year now that we’ve been going through our daily practice of closing board. We gather together and everyone shares a bit about what they gleaned that day, what ideas they heard, what beauty they encountered. We listen, we talk, we write it up on our white board—ending our days with the same intention that we start our days with. It was realllly hard to keep up this habit. Mostly because at the end of the day, I. Am. Done. 😂 But this practice has yielded so much goodness. Enriching relationships, creating opportunities for more conversation and giving me a window into what they are really thinking through and processing. We recently began “The Lawgivers” which is David Hick’s translation of Plutarch’s Lives (Lycurgus and Numa Pompilius) and the boys are really connecting with the language, layout, helpful notes and breaking points in the reading. It is incredibly reader friendly. (You can catch my eldest sharing a bit about Lycurgus in my stories today!) I am enjoying that dash of Plutarch in the afternoon closing board and soaking up our study time in the mornings. I am really loving the story of Lycurgus. ❤️Today we are giving away TWO copies of this new book from @circeinstitute. To enter 1) Follow @circeinstitute 2)tag two friends in the comments below. Giveaway closed! Congratulations @reformedfarmerswife and @herbanhomestead 🎉🎉🎉
We are home from the @wildandfree.co conference and our family road trip🚐 Natural springs, a yurt, stick insects, a canyon, a red shouldered hawk devouring a snake, an orchard, a hellbender, crayfish, hot chocolate, birthday candles, donuts, the list of memories made goes on and on. The bags are yet to be unpacked and I have several dozen emails yet to be read, but that doesn’t matter right now. There is a window for processing and conversing about everything we saw while the dew of wonder is still fresh and it must be seized, preferably over tea and a handcraft. 🙌🏼 #pajamasallday ☕️ 🧶 Sunday morning we went to Biscuit Love for breakfast, to enjoy conversation and remember our dear @jennifernaraki. Jeff and the boys came at the tail end and sat around the table and jumped into conversations. My boys fell hard for @talltimbersacademy @leahvboden @kristinrogers @jendydees @maandpamodern @jenniferpepito. The walk out to the car turned into a mini nature walk before we said our goodbyes. Later that day one of the boys shared, “You know, I can tell by mom’s friends that when all the wild and free kids grow up, I bet we’ll all find each other. I’ll see someone who stopped to really look at a caterpillar on the sidewalk and we’ll start talking and then we’ll recognize eachother’s childhood.” 🐛🦋🐞🌿🦎🕸While standing backstage Friday night, I closed my eyes and thought of my boys and my mind drew up the image of an hourglass. I still remember a card I received at my first baby shower that featured an hourglass with the sand running out and some cheerful admonishment to enjoy motherhood before it was gone. One of the reasons why I love @wildandfree.co is that it never tries to scare me into focusing all my energy on the top of the hourglass. The women and families that make up @wildandfree.co remind me of what is being built up in small increments each passing day. Grains made of stories and laughter and tea times and rounding up chickens and working through hard things and salamanders and poems. These women remind me that childhood is just one phase of the relationship with my boys. I am so grateful for that reminder. I’m so thankful I get to witness it.

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