my girl

Yesterday was my girl's 8th birthday.

How did that happen?

I remember when she arrived, long limbed and peaceful, resting on my chest. She was so peaceful in fact, that I kept asking, "Is she all right? Is she alive?"

Of course, said the midwives. Just hold her umbilical cord, here. You will feel her heart beating.

Which is the moment my heart joined hers. Even as she became her own person, separate from me. She became mine always, her heart and my heart intertwined.

Which makes it just so extraordinary, that she is eight, that she is growing before my very eyes into her own, unique and independant person. Someone who, these days, simply does not need her mother by her side at all times.

•

Almost two years ago, just before we pulled my girl out of school, she was a wreck. As close to having a nervous breakdown as I've ever seen anyone. She barely ate; she couldn't sleep unless I lay with her the whole night. She cried at the drop of a hat and she would not, could not, leave my side.

Her fear was like a mountain lion, prowling through our house, claiming all our territory. School had become a terror for her; she curled up on the kitchen floor in the mornings, literally begging not to go.

I had to rescue her.

People supposedly 'in the know' said, "She will never learn resilience if you take her out of school now. It is just separation anxiety. Leave her to us. Leave her at the gate. Leave her and walk away."

I couldn't do it. On the second day of the second term of the most miserable year of her school life, we simply turned away from the classroom door and went back to the car. A friend stopped us on the way to the parking lot—I told her we were done, finished, leaving, and she said, "Please let me take her. She'll be all right once you're gone."

No.

She will be all right, I thought, once she knows I will not leave her to this. She will be all right once she knows I have her back, always. She will be all right when she knows she is safe.

Within two weeks of leaving school, my girl was eating, sleeping in her own bed, and smiling.

Within a month, she was becoming friends with other homeschoolers, tentatively (and with me close by).

Within the year, she was a completely different person to the terrified little girl I took out of school.

People who knew her then and see her now say, It's incredible.

I know. She is incredible. She knows we are there for her and that gives her wings. She tests those wings more and more, stretching further and further, every single day.

It is beautiful to watch. Actually, it is stunning.

•

So yesterday, my girl spent her special day with friends she's made on her homeschooling journey.

We had planned to go cuddle kittens at the RSPCA, but her friends rang and said "Please, please come over now! We just can't wait 'til later."

We ended up spending the day with them, because my girl loves them to pieces—they make her shine from the inside.

She is her true self when she is with them, and barely notices whether I come or go.

She is alight, alive, independent, entirely sure of who she is. She is the person she has become, after finding safety and finding wings.

She is also a girl separate from me.

Yesterday, I wasn't the centre of my girl's universe. Which was a bit hard to see at first, the space between me and her, when it feels like just a second ago that she came out, long-limbed and peaceful, connected to me by a cord and a heart beat.

Part of me wanted her to myself. Wanted the girl who stuck close, the girl who needed me to function. Because then I was needed, and vital, and because then I could keep the identity I've grown used to. That of rescuer, prince on horseback, knight in shining armour, superhero.

But yesterday she didn't need that kind of mum. In fact, I'd say she's pretty much done with that kind of mum, for the most part.

On the occasion of my girl's 8th birthday, I faced the fact that, every day, with steps going forward and some back, my daughter will grow and become her own person—more and more herself, more and more apart from me.

And that the wings she has grown are everything I dreamed of.

•

But today,

I will get my morning cuddles, and for that moment I will be her bright star.

(Even if she then dashes off to play with her new remote controlled car, building a crash outfit for it so she can battle her brother's car).

And I will always love her. And she will love me.

(Even if sometimes I annoy her by being too clingy, and have some separation anxiety)

And I will always be her mum.

(Even if sometimes I gallop up to rescue her, only to find she did it for herself)

Happy Birthday, beautiful girl. I do love you so.

(And ha.

I just had to remove a teeny tiny black spider from the carpet so my girl could play there.

So I have a purpose still!

Where's my cape?)

somewhere beautiful

Once upon a time, a boy and a girl

(well, actually a man and a woman.

But they're not sure they have ever grown up…)

went on a date.

But it wasn't your regular date

which starts around dinner time and

ends when you pay the babysitter.

No. This was a BIG date.

One involving a long journey, three whole days away from children,

and a lot of music.

The woman was nervous, because she had never been away from her kids this long.

The man was excited, because he really wanted to hang out with his wife and share something with her that he loved.

Both of them wanted to go, and weren't sure they should leave, and they dithered a little…

But the kind, wonderful people

who had offered to be with their children,

and wanted to be with their children, look after them, enjoy them,

all said they really, really ought to go.

(And the children were unbelievably excited at the prospect of all those sleepovers!)

So the man and the woman

were free to leave.

They left on a Friday night.

They drove their van,

which they were going to sleep in,

like hippies, or University students,

or,

like people living on the single income of a music teacher.

They drove into the night…

the woman beginning to relax a little bit more, and a little bit more

as the road unwound itself in front of them.

The first night

they slept in a little campground by a river,

and the woman saw a possum scuttling up a tree.

And she loved that she could see stars through the windows of the van

as she lay inside, beside the man she loved,

drifting off to sleep…

The next morning, they looked for the river, but it was hiding beside some trees.

They did see the moon, though…

It was

still and pale in the sky,

worn to a nub by all that shining.

They drove on

and the rain began to come down

and the man sang along to and over the top of

the hip-hop on the radio,

jazz lines over the electro-drum beat.

When they got there, it was raining.

And it rained and

rained

and rained.

People dashed from venue to venue,

where, inside,

they were rocked into stillness

by the sounds

they heard.

And when the man listened to the music

he loved

next to the woman he loved,

he cried.

There was so much beauty,

everyone there sharing a single vision—

to enjoy

something that is as hard to pin down as a star or

a field-flung butterfly

or dreams.

And the woman heard things that made her shiver and smile with delight.

And she called her children every day and they were happy.

And at night she slept next to the man, and heard the rain dance on the van roof.

Like it knew how her heart was dancing,

how the man's heart was full,

how good

this moment

was.

And then, just like that, and after all that joy,

the festival was done

and it was time to go home.

(eating pizza at night by streetlamp, after the very last concert was over)

The man and the woman

drove and drove and drove and drove.

And sometimes the rain came, and the fog,

and the road curved and bent with the hills.

And sometimes the man and the woman talked and sometimes they were

silent.

As they carried the beauty

back…

to share

with their children.

lows and highs

Today had all sorts of highs and lows,

the lows consisting of:

feeling stressed when I turned up, on time, to see my lovely counsellor (who is part of my safety net and has helped with The Lows a lot)…only to discover that I'd got the time wrong and was not supposed to be there for two hours.

feeling more stressed when I realised that in two hours I would be busy, and therefore I would miss out on chatting with her.

feeling even more stressed because I'd been feeling kind of overwhelmed recently (all right, fine, a LOT overwhelmed) with some Stuff and I suddenly thought, "How am I supposed to manage now?"

(I should mention that part of the reason I've been feeling overwhelmed is because we're going away, just my husband and I, for THREE WHOLE DAYS and THREE WHOLE NIGHTS. Without kids. And that had recently hit me, and suddenly I thought there were way too many WHOLE DAYS and WHOLE NIGHTS between seeing my kids and seeing my kids. I know lots of people do this, but THREE WHOLE DAYS AND NIGHTS is longer than I've ever been away from them. Panic!!

Plus there was a bunch of Messy Stuff connected to going away, both logistic and emotional, and for a second or two (or more) it looked like we might not even go. So by the time I rocked up to my lovely counsellor, I was ready to dump it all in her lap, sift through it for any nuggets of wisdom, and have a good cry.)

But today's low meant:

no counsellor, no dump, no cry.

I was all set to feel sorry for myself. You know that feeling? All ready to be, "This is too hard." "Stop, I want to get off." "Why me?" "This sucks." And, "Blah."

Before kids, and before responsibility, and before the life I have now, I would have happily settled into that feeling, that general unfocussed feeling of Blah, for a good day or week, or more.

I would have probably listened to Too Sad Music and done some mournful walking in a park or by the sea. I might have gone for a bike ride, and I might have watched really awful t.v. I might have wallowed and written some sad stuff in my diary. I might have sat in my room and howled.

I remember doing all these things, before kids, responsibility, before entering the Life that I have now (aka the Life that I Love).

But on this day, I had to be somewhere.

I had to go to today's Lego League meeting, where I would be helping with the group's big presentation. I was expected and I was needed. My son would already be there, and my daughter would be coming soon. I knew I couldn't walk in weepy or useless. I had to have my game face on.

So,

I drove and leaked some tears, and drove some more and leaked some more.

I arrived. Took a deep breath.

And entered my Life.

I was greeted by bounding, bouncy kids, all saying, "Helena! You're here! You made it! You're just in time! We just finished the thing we didn't need you for and are about to start the thing we DO need you for! How did you know?"

I got hugs. I got talked to, laughed with; I got high fives. I got to help these awesome kids (young people) with their project. I got to play games with the group while eating popcorn in my friend's backyard. I got to listen to everyone's ideas and be excited for them. I got to put smiley faces on post-it notes and, with my fellow Fun Fairy, plaster them everywhere.

I was welcomed and then some.

It was warm. And kind. And real.

Then we went to Homeschool group, where more fun was had. Lovely women were there, and at one point I reminisced about how scary Homeschooling seemed in the beginning and did they remember that one day I was so overwhelmed by all the Government Jargon about Educational Outcomes that I took myself to bed for two hours? Yes, they remembered, and we all laughed.

It has become a funny memory now. It's amazing to think that more than a year has gone by since that moment. Amazing to think that homeschooling rarely scares me now. And how much more confident I feel about so many things.

It's also a reminder that things get better.

They get better.

This is the high. If you take all the highs that my day had,

you end up with this

one true thing.

The "one true thing" being my constant Life Lesson, the one I'm always learning, and relearning, and then learning again.

The lesson being…

that sometimes things are overwhelming.

Sometimes that's just how it is.

Sometimes it's so overwhelming that you take yourself to bed for two hours in the middle of the day. Sometimes it's so overwhelming that you leak tears (you don't howl, or wail, or sob—you simply leak) as you drive your car.

Sometimes it's so overwhelming and messy and tricky that sometimes you think, "How am I supposed to manage now?"

But then sometimes…

if you are lucky, or open, or brave, or

not brave at all and are—quite simply—just putting one foot in front of the other,

Life finds you.

It finds you keeping on.

Keeping on

doing,

living,

being,

breathing,

accepting,

welcoming,

loving,

learning.

And it finds you

being loved right back.

It finds you

being needed, and welcomed and found.

It finds you

dipping, and rising, dipping and rising.

Dipping and rising. Dipping and rising.

finishing

Is it an irony when someone asks you to join their blog hop,

a blog hop specifically about finishing something,

and you don't join the hop

(at least, you don't Hop when you were meant to Hop, which was yesterday),

not because you haven't finished something,

but because you can't manage to finish the blog post about finishing something?

I think it might just be.

And was that or was that not a very long sentence?

(Which I finished, by the way!

See, Deb! I CAN finish something already!)

And for the record…

I just finished sorting through and clearing out all the cardboard box creations that my daughter has made over the past couple of months.

There have been MANY (like, they covered almost every surface of the house!).

I saved some and took photos of the others as I went,

because they were and are precious.

(Since tidying up, my daughter made a couple more things—

like a boat, another boat, a toy for the cat, and last night she made

an egg-carton turtle called Malachite

who can give little friends rides inside her)

Malachite, the friendly turtle

I started and finished making my son's Mighty Spartan Outfit

(thank you, Pillowcase, for being in the right place

at the right time when I needed you!).

I also

finished making dinner

and

finished eating it

with my girl,

while my son and husband were out,

at my son's first gig

playing for a private function

(where he got fed some delicious spaghetti, played music,

and got doughnuts for dessert.

A seriously good day for him).

I even finished cleaning up the kitchen

(which, along with doing laundry and going grocery shopping

is one of my least favourite things to do).

Most importantly

at various times

in the past couple of days,

I finished

sitting

in a chair

with the cat on my lap.

Both of us

purring.

3 things

Three images (and moments) I am in love with today

A wild Spartan warrior

who has been asking for a Greek tunic for ages

and after reading Story of the World yesterday

(and learning about Alexander the Great)

said,

'I really want us to make that Spartan costume now,'

and I said, 'Okay then'

(there being nothing scheduled for the day and

nothing that had to be done).

So

we made it,

just like that,

and then he charged, and stalked, and leaped about the garden with his home-made spear and shield,

pretending to be at war with the chickens. Very funny.

credit

A fox sniffing a daffodil

which my sister sent me via email,

and which made me think of all these things at once:

of Fox being a cherished family name,

of me loving foxes since I was a child,

(there always being a fox on the christmas cake when I was little,

toy foxes given as presents and my whole family once receiving

an orange t-shirt with a fox on it for Christmas—a gift from my sister),

of

daffodils being my, and my grandmother's and my sister's

favourite flower,

of my grandmother,

my sister,

and

of

bliss

(that being the exact look on the fox's face and how I feel when I am breathing in my kids).

And finally…

a cat on the lap of a girl on a lap

making a neat sandwich,

and making my girl the happiest little girl in the middle ever.

Editors note:

my daughter just looked at this blog post and said,

"But that's not my favourite picture!"

So we looked for her favourite, and here it is—

credit:

photo taken by my boy

a saturday morning

I had to get on and write down what my kids are doing

RIGHT NOW.

It's Saturday morning, 9am. The world is my kids' oyster.

Neither has had breakfast.

And they are both at their desks.

My son is doing Life of Fred—Fractions

My daughter is making a phone with a little box.

They are in their element.

And that brings me JOY.

(and them.

They don't even realise it—

how gorgeous they are, how easy it is for them to find happiness,

how effortless their learning is.

They're living inside their simple joy and to them, it's just life.

They are simply being.

Which makes it all the more beautiful)

(As for my husband, on this lovely Saturday morning?

He is playing Bop-It, his new birthday toy. It's really really loud!)

Have a beautiful weekend!

news and such

So I've got some fun news.

Simple Homeschool asked for some guest post submissions back in July, and I sent off a couple that I thought might fit their site. Then I forgot I'd sent them and life went on.

Then a couple of days ago, I got an email from Jamie, the editor, saying they'd like to publish my post on Socialisation. How cool is that?! And it's on the site right now—I'm officially a guest blogger!

I think the site is a great, supportive resource—full of information, inspiration, and how-tos. It's definitely worth checking out.

The regular writers have their own lovely blogs too. One writer is on my blog list already, Amida from Journey Into Unschooling. She's definitely worth checking out, too!

Just you wait: I'll thrill everyone with my awesomeness and insight and all the homeschool sites will say, "Oh, Helena, please please come and post with us regularly and share your wisdom," and I'll say, "Must I?" and they'll all say, "Oh, you must!" and I'll say, "Well…if you insist!"

And then I will skyrocket into fame and fortune until finally my picture will grace the cover of Time magazine, with the headline: Helena. Wise. Awesome. And ever so Humble.

At least they'll be right about my name!