How We Homeschool Sena

When it comes to Sena's education, it is best if I stay out of the way.

I didn't intent to unschool her, but that is what is happening, by and large.

During the past few weeks, she has been helping Tom run his lines for The Miser. Opening weekend, she went and saw the play twice, the first time completely by herself. (The director happened to notice her sitting by herself, so joined her. The director also happens to be her grandfather.) She has been studying the two acting theory books she ordered with an Amazon gift card, and she's been reading volumes of one acts she has discovered hidden among our novels. This week she finished her play for the Children's Playwriting Festival, marking the fourth year she has participated. (Which I have already bragged about in this post) She's been watching Youtube videos about how to train her voice, and more than once someone has caught her at the end of my parents' pier singing her heart out to the blue crabs and perch swimming in the shallows.

This week she wrote a five paragraph essay on why you should become vegan.  And then another on why you shouldn't. She can tell you all about The China Study and the controversy surrounding it. She is wrapping up the end of a Whole 30 challenge that many in our family started, and only she has completed.

She practices yoga every day.

She reads mountains of books.

She draws to her heart's content.

She fills notebooks with her words.

Gus and I have been studying the branches of government. The other day the three of us sat down to draw a picture of the White House. Sena went on to study the architecture in depth, and then drew out the floor plan as well.

The only subject I help her with in any significant way is math. We use Life of Fred. We're currently completing Pre-Algebra with Physics, and quite frankly, we're both struggling.

She still sits at the dining room table with me and Gus when we study geography. I turn on documentaries I think she should watch. Tom and I recommend books. We go on loads of field trips. As her parents, we are still active in introducing ideas. But really, if left to her own devices, she does a better job than we could ever dream of.

Sometime this week I'll try to share how we homeschool Gus, which bares very little resemblance to this. 

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This Weekend We

Without a doubt, the highlight of this weekend was Sena's birthday sleepover on Friday night. She had three friends spend the night, and we went to the Melting Pot in Annapolis to eat fondue with my mom, sister Claire, and my brother's girlfriend Tracy. While four girls sat on one side of the table giggling as they speared bit and pieces of bread and meat, four women sat on the other side, engaged in slightly less giddy, but still beautiful conversations of our own.

I spend lots of time with my mom and sisters, but there was something about being out and apart from the chaos of home that gave way to spending time with each other in a different way. A way I very much appreciated.

I'm so glad that I invited the other adults because I'm quite certain that if I had been there alone with the four girls, I would have been completely left out, seeing as most of their conversations were about the minutia of Harry Potter and Percy Jackson, two series I have never read.  I am glad that we shared the table with those girls, and I hope that Sena always remembers the army of women at her side.

When you homeschool your kids, one of the greatest fears is that they won't have friends. Truthfully, it hasn't always been easy to find the right people for my kids, and I think that all of my sisters would agree that there were times in our own homeschooled experience when we had felt like didn't have the same sort of posse that other kids did. While my children have usually been able to find playmates, there have been periods when they lacked any friends, a word I don't use lightly. But my heart was full and thankful on Friday night when I saw that Sena has some good, true friends. Girls who laughed at her puns and were just as eager to make their own. It did my mother's heart good.

The weekend also involved lots of sun which gave way to huge groups of roaming neighborhood kids, a sure sign of spring.

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True Grit

Warning: This post is an unabashed brag about my oldest daughter. 

The two things I admire most about Asenath Rose are that she never gives up and she never complains.

Last winter she went to a friend's birthday party at a roller skating rink. She had never skated before. When Sena came home, she laughed as she told me that she had fallen fifteen times. She exhibited no embarrassed or self-consciousness. She proclaimed the party a complete success. 

Every year for the past three years, Sena has written and submitted a play to a small, local children's playwriting competition.  She eagerly awaits the day they announce the winners. For three years in a row, she has discovered that her play has not been picked. Again. And yet, for the past two weeks she has been hard at work for next year's entry. 

Sena has also auditioned for play's produced by the same local theater. Time and again she has been cast as an extra or in a bit role. This summer, when I told her that she was cast as Student #2, she cried. Another part without even a name. But she stuck it out, went to her rehearsals, and for the sake of the play, even made the decision to stay with my parents when we went on a previously planned camping trip.  Two days before the play opened, a girl with a much larger role dropped out, and Sena got it. I'm not sure if I had ever seen her more excited.

My daughter doesn't have a wall of trophies or medals, plagues or certificates proving how amazing and talented she is. There are times when I wish the world would acknowledge her. But she isn't special because of any accomplishments. She's special because of the person she is, the person deep in her that rises to the surface when she laughs heartily at her own failures. 

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This Weekend We // Sena's Disco Funk Party

Quite frankly, these pictures didn't capture the chaos.

Or the noise. 

Or the fun.

They don't really convey Sena's nonstop smile, or the satisfaction she had regarding a party she has been planning in her own mind since days after her last birthday. Actually, I take that back. She's been planning this party since before her last birthday. 

She invited all her friends, and lucky for me, she counts among her best friends many of my best friends, grown-ups willing to indulge in late night Parliament dance offs.  The party included a disco ball, a spotlight, tons of sparkly dresses, an Afro, a Russian fur hat, and plenty of impressive moves. Sena had the foresight to spend the morning stretching in preparation. She wasn't going to let cramps or sore muscle keep her from the action. 

We also discovered that Arlo takes after his big sister in more ways than we previously knew-- just like her, he never wants to leave the party. He fell asleep on Tom's back dancing, then woke up through the night begging to dance with his friend some more. 

The party also felt like my first real attempt at my New Year's resolution, which has been on my mind a lot despite not being put into action the way I had intended. As it turns out, having fun in the dead of winter while pregnant was not all that easy. Have I been happy? Heck yeah. But I don't think I've had a ton of fun, per se.  A disco funk party was just the way to change that, so thank you Sena for making that happen, even if it did mean strapping a three week old to my chest so that I could bust some moves. 

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Asenath Rose, My Ten Year Old

Sena Rose, the child who made me a mother, turned ten yesterday. For her birthday, she asked for an antique desk, a digital camera, a giant family dinner with pot roast and pound cake, and a disco dance party as soon as things settle down.  Maybe you need to know her to understand how perfectly fitting these little details are, to know how these bits and pieces map her personality as well as any string of adjectives ever could.

She has grown up so much the past few weeks, proving to be the most considerate helping hand, picking things up and organizing, always closing closets and cabinets left ajar, straightening shoes left by the front door.  At this very moment as I steal away to drink a cup of coffee and try to find the right words to explain just how proud I am of her, she is upstairs singing to her baby sister, made up lyrics sung loudly with complete abandon, filled with love and devotion.  I hope this is your happiest year yet, Sena. 

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Cut

She can't stop smiling. Or running her hands through her hair. Or trying to catch a glimpse of herself in reflective surfaces.

She woke up this morning ready to take the plunge, too impatient to wait for her hairdresser aunt to cut it sometime this week. I would be willing to bet hard earned dollars that her impatience had everything to do with a birthday party at the skating rink this afternoon. Given my penchant for spontaneous hack jobs, I was happy to be given the chance to chop away.

Her shorn hair looks beautiful, just has her wild mermaid locks did just this very morning. Her sweet little face pops right out, and her excitement over the change makes her radiant. But I look at her now, and I see an older child. Old enough to want to start deciding, all on her own.

I try to remind myself it's just a haircut.
But a haircut has the power to be so much more.
A statement.
A sign of change.
An identity.

And she was ready to choose her own.

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Excited

On Sunday after my baby shower, Sena loaded up my van with all the gifts we had just been given without any instruction from me. When we got home, she dutifully carried everything in and then even went a step further; she carried everything upstairs and set off folding and organizing and giving each new piece a proper home.

Today at work they threw me another shower, which warmed my heart and brought tears to my eyes. After this baby is born, I won't be going back to work. It's hard to think about not seeing so many people who I have seen every school day for the past eight years, people I like, respect, and admire. It is the only high school I have ever known as a teacher or a student. It is a warm, comfortable, fun place, and I am so glad that I got to teach there for so many years. I have so many thoughts about leaving and what it means, but I can't even fully come to terms with them yet because, like Sena, who is upstairs putting away today's booty, I am so focused and excited about Alamae's approaching arrival. It is too hard to think about all the changes coming my way and what they all mean. Instead, I'll just dwell on the picture of my almost ten year old daughter. A child who is many wonderful things, but not usually "helpful." However, as we prepare for her sister, she is eager to do anything she can. She jumps at my requests, never balking or stalling or acting the least bit put out. A maturity is taking over her. I can't even imagine all the ways that this new little person headed our way is going to change us all.

These next three to five weeks are always the longest. And the closer I get to the finish line, the longer they will become. Is that physics or something?

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Character Development

In movies and books, character always trumps plot. I am far more concerned with who is doing something than I am with what is being done.

I grew up in a family of six children: one boy, five girls. From the outside, I am sure that we were frequently understood as a unit rather than a set of six individuals. But within our band, we knew who we were. We knew who was the firey one. The sweet one. We knew who was the quietest and who was the loudest. The bossy one. The most independent. Trying to explain each personality was a part of early friendships, the sort of thing you spend hours discussing with a boy you have a crush on while staring out at the dark water.

I felt like you couldn't know me without knowing them. And knowing about them collectively is not enough. You needed to know them as individuals.

As I write my children's story here, I hope that readers understand them as individuals too. It's easy for Sena to just be the girl. For Gus to be the boy. For Arlo to be the baby. But each of them is so much more. 

Sena is shy and bossy. Worried about breaking rules, but never worried about "fitting in."

On Sunday a girl at church, the same girl who teased Gus because of his long hair, made fun of the turban Sena was wearing. Sena just told her, "We have different styles. You're more a preppy style. I'm more of an artsy, weird style."

Gus is serious and charming. He is the sweetest of my children, the one most likely to offer a hug when he thinks someone needs it. He will tell me I look pretty out of nowhere, and suddenly, I feel pretty because Gus is above all things honest.

For the first year of Arlo's life we sang the praise to his mellowness. He adapted easily to situations, rarely complaining. As he has gotten older, he is more likely to let his displeasure be known, most often by furrowing his brow. He will sit quietly for long stretches playing with plastic dinosaurs or Sena's dolls. However, he would much rather be running after his older siblings around the center of the house, laughing and squealing, "Come on guys!"

Other attempts at explaining them: My Tribe  and Likes/ Dislikes. 

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The Brink of Things

My little girl is in so many ways still a little girl. She spends hours playing with her dolls. She cuts up the pages of catalogs and creates collages and wish lists. She dresses like a little girl, still perfectly content in her printed jersey dresses and leggings, with no desire to wear skinny jeans or try out trends. She jumps on her daddy's back for piggy back rides, not realizing that the task is getting harder and harder for her dad, who is still mostly daddy. At night she needs tucked in, though she would prefer if someone slept right beside her.

Nothing quite prepares you for the change, watching as your little girl starts to become a woman, before either of you are ready. My desperate hope that organic milk and grass fed beef would somehow keep change at bay has not been rewarded.

As I have always done, I turn to books to help me understand. I read and re-read the pages of The Body Project: An Intimate History of American Girls, a slightly outdated account of the changing role of girls' bodies, which I found on the dusty shelves of my high school's library. Within the pages it recounts how teaching and explaining puberty to modern girls mostly involves the discussion of personal hygiene, and I see my own approach reflected. I can explain the need for deodorant and skin care. My daughter understands science enough to know that this all makes sense. But the book argues for a more inclusive approach. It suggests that we should be talking to our daughters about their approaching role as fertile women. I look at my own shy daughter, who only a few short months ago blushed at a candy commercial that featured a naked M & M. How do I talk to her about all the things I think that maybe I am supposed to talk to her about?

Ever since my children could ask, I told them the truth about bodies and biology. When they asked where babies came from, I told them. And I told them how they got there too. I'm not saying it was the right way, but it was my way. I  didn't want to lie, and  didn't want to have postpone an awkward conversation until my children were awkward preteens. It seemed easier to put it on the table and keep it on the table. But the awkward preteen is sitting at the table now making tickets for another talent show, little hand drawn giblets that litter her wake, and she might know the facts, but there are plenty of other things she doesn't know.  I'm looking at my little girl, and I don't quite know what to tell her or what to ask her.

And so I revert to my old standby, click purchase, and wait for Judy Blume to come and do the talking, hoping that maybe Are You There God, It's Me, Margret, might answer some questions she didn't even know she had.

This was written and posted with Sena's permission. 

I figure she's getting old enough that I should seek her approval before I share. 

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My Girl

While Gus seems like he came from neither of us, like he may have been switched at birth, every single one of Sena's actions, interests, and personality traits is easily traced back to me or to Tom.

If we had only had Sena, I think I would have been under the mistaken impression that children are perfect blends of their parents. That child is so completely our child that sometimes it is borderline painful. I watch her and I see myself and I see my husband, and sometimes I forget to see Sena. And then her shy smile creeps across her face, and I see her again, my girl who loves to dance and to eat weird food, who can be teased easily and who is always trying to find a way to make a pun.

She is confident and bossy, like her mother, but with a touch of shyness she gets from Tom. She doesn't complain. She makes the most of everything. She jumps in, with both feet, every single time.

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Sleepaway Camp

Today Sena was the first one awake. She could hardly sleep because she was so excited. I found her on the computer looking over every little scrap of information she could find about camp, counting the minutes until one o'clock when we could check her in. 

She has spent hours looking over camp schedules and sample menus, trying to decide what activities she will sign up for, figuring out what to expect.  I felt at least a dozen emotions dropping her off, most surprisingly, jealousy. There was a part of me that wanted to be nine years old too, so excited about something that I couldn't sleep, about to do all sorts of things I had never done before. 

But a larger part of me was nervous, hovering in a way I never normally do, more than a little heartbroken when she sent us away.

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This Weekend We- Merhons Take Coney Island

A year ago, my friend Maggie sent me a text telling me about the Coney Island Mermaid Parade. Since that text message, there has been lots of late night bonfire scheming, lots of excitement, lots of image searching and pinning and planning, all leading to a weekend filled with girls and tails and conch shells.

It did not disappoint. We stayed in an Airbnb rental in Bushwick, which was a pretty long hike from Coney Island, but close to friends and cheap, delicious tacos.

We ate donuts (all good stories involve donuts) and sipped coffee on Saturday morning as hair was teased and shimmery green eyeshadow applied. We made the trek across Brooklyn, almost bursting with excitement as we got closer to Coney Island and started to run into more mermaids and parade enthusiasts.

I also fell a little in love with Coney Island, which is so different from the beaches I mostly went to as a kid. It's tacky and raucous and completely fun. I am already scheming more trips.   I want to see the freak shows and ride the rides, eat hot dogs and go back to Gambrinus to feast on lobsters, smoked eels, and baked clams; next time, with my boys in tow.

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