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Podcasts

Mason Jar Podcast with Cindy Rollins
Episode #42: Charlotte Mason and the Young Mother

Ultimate Homeschool Radio Network with Kathy Lee
Interview with Elsie Iudicello from Farmhouse Schoolhouse

Wild + Free Recordings:
Episode 2: Chasing the Spark
Episode 27: Family Camp and Elsie Iudicello
Episode 28: Elsie Iudicello and Jennifer Naraki
Episode 33: Practical Tips for Natural Learning

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@Farmhouse_Schoolhouse

The night before Thanksgiving, we got the news. The baby we had been hoping to bring home in a few days, was not to be ours. We sat our four boys down to gently break the news, to cry our tears, to answer their many questions. Yes, we would put away the baby clothes. Yes, we would cover the crib again. Yes, we were going to keep waiting. Yes, Adoption is hard. Yes, we are so deeply thankful this baby has a family. We circled in together and grieved with gratitude. (Our part in her story blessed us. We got to PRAY for her and her birth mom. What an honor it was to do that. Even if she ultimately went to another loving family, we are so thankful we got to be a part of it). The day after Thanksgiving, I thought about the next few months of our lives, the months I had briefly believed would be full of diaper changes, washing bottles, lullabies and helping a baby in the grief of losing her birth mother. It’s hard to navigate the shifting landscape of our imagination as hope and sorrow flow back and forth. I vascillate between just doing the next thing, taking the next step, and needing to lift my eyes to the distant future to remember where it is I’m headed, lest I slowly drift far off course one small step at a time. This next week I am writing small pieces of our family vision down on my calendar, one small piece per day. Then I am choosing one small thing to do that day that meets the vision. One small step in the right direction, while we take time to mend. There is mercy in the fact that this happened on the doorstep of advent. My prayers have been very short these last few days. Three small words whispered over and over again, “I trust you.” I say it with confidence because He always keeps His promises. My heart hurts, but I trust Him.
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 🎉🎉🎉

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