So much change seems to be going on within the lives of my kids, and in me, and it is not easy to document all that I want to with regards to life learning. I have been reading so, so much about radical unschooling lately, and every day I want more, more, more to fill up my brain so that I'm at maximum capacity with understanding all that I can about trusting my children, responding to their needs and desires, bringing them a world of interesting things, and being a nurturing and responsive parent who is not critical, cynical, or mean.
This winter has been challenging in some respects because we've not had much snow, we've had a lot of very cold weather that makes being outside unpleasant, we've had two different viral infections, and I think all of us are a little stir-crazy.
The upside has been going to my nephews basketball games, where the girls can meet up with friends and new acquaintances, and play in a completely different setting of the gym. It's been loads of fun to watch them explore the gym, talk to policemen, interact with young teens, kids their age, and all those in-between.
N. got an iPod Touch for Christmas, which she requested, and uses every day. It was definitely the perfect technological tool for her. She can take pictures and videos, watch TV shows and movies, listen to and sing along to music, and play games. Some of the apps are so creative, and it's fun to see how she transforms her own pictures into creative works of art. Now if only I could figure out how to communicate with the router so she can get online with it!
N. is also changing in big ways. Being 8 is such a profound time. She suddenly has a personal awareness of her place in the world, and a much vaster comprehension of her likes and dislikes. Emotionally, this awareness can be challenging. She misses her best friend so much that it hurts physically. Then the mundane reality of conflicting schedules, illness, and other life stuff causes great big emotional reactions when things don't really go her way.
I can recall being 8 pretty vividly. But being in school, and being a minority, made things challenging for me in ways that are much different than what N. is experiencing. For me, I had so much freedom and desire to be outside, and I was all the time. We rode horses every day, rode bikes, played in the mud, made our own adobe houses, and hotwheels tracks out of dirt embankments. We played in the river, and just explored every inch of every place we called our own. My desire to be with my friends was generally met easily and without much conflict.
N. prefers to be close to home, and her discomfort and anxiety levels escalate when things get pushed outside her comfort zones. She has a great desire to see her friend each week, but between families getting sick lately it's been hard to get together enough. Hopefully nicer weather will bring more ability to get together.
Little S. is expanding her horizons as well. She's suddenly, and overnight writing letters and numbers. She has been enjoying me reading to her before bedtime, and she's been pretty easygoing and even keel.
My biggest dilemma is working and not being able to be present enough for my kids each day. All the illness meant much more time together, and I did relish every bit of it. Just being sweet, and caring, and giving to them when they were feeling bad meant so much to me. I have wished for decades now that I could be the one who stays home, but alas, it is still not meant to be. This aspect to our life-learning journey is the most difficult. Add to that my extremely gung-ho attitude when it comes to my own interests, and it makes for some feelings of guilt and many questions of how things will evolve.
I'm very excited, however, to learn that there will be 3 Always Learning Live Unschooling Conferences in Albuquerque within the next 1.5 years. I'll post more about that as I learn more.
