It’s funny, when you homeschool the most common comment you hear from other parents (or at least I hear, I can really only speak for myself) is “Oh, that is great that you do that.  I could never spend that much time with my child.  I mean, we need time apart and I enjoy the time he/she is in school.   I could not do without it”  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that.  And I used to think that way as well, before I started homeschooling.

But here’s the thing, once you get used to having that time together, you actually really enjoy it.  I really enjoy being with Rye.  Teaching him, learning from him,  learning together.  I mean do we need breaks from each other?  Oh yes.  Do we get sick of each other sometimes?  Oh yes.  And yes.  But we get breaks from each other.  Rye plays sports, he takes outside enrichment classes, he goes to friends’ houses, he goes to summer camps.   And now I’m starting to see…this time we have together is going to start passing quickly.

Because the conversation is changing.

While Rye and I used to talk about this or that, we now talk quite a bit about him and his friends working on engines, fixing 4-wheelers and dirt bikes, buying parts, saving for a car, getting his driver’s permit and license, getting a moped before he can get a car, getting a part-time job, making money, saving money, girls, girlfriends, hanging out with friends, going to the lake with friends, telling him he has to come home some and not spend all of his time with friends, and on and on.

It’s all changing.

Rye turns 14 this summer.  In the next year or two he will be able to get a part-time job, save money, buy a car, have a girlfriend, etc.  And for a kid who has always had a lot of separation anxiety, I can see that that is starting to play less and less of a role.

I’m happy and sad all at the same time to watch him grow up.

It’s bittersweet.

I really love that kid.  I love him with all my heart.

And I’m starting to see, he won’t be a kid for too much longer.

If I had to look back on our past month or so, I would say learning outside the classroom has been our focus.  Learning about the world around us and learning about ourselves.  I mean, yes, we have been doing daily math lessons, we have been watching educational movies involving pieces of American History (some of which have been great), we have been playing the word game and building our vocabularies, we have been reading and writing a bit and are back on track with the tutor.  But really, we’ve been exploring.

As you know, we spent many weeks in the past month + at the beach.  As it turned out, this was a great lesson not only in nature but also in one of my favorite lessons of all time…only boring people get bored.

Why do I say this?  Well, there isn’t technically much to do at the beach we go to as far as traditional entertainment.  As a result I was asked many times, what is there to do here?

My answer?  I don’t know, you tell me.

At one point Rye’s friend asked me out on the beach, so what kind of beach toys or games did you bring? What do we have to play with?

My answer?  Well, we brought you, silly.  And your imagination.  And you have all of the outdoors to work with.  Show us what you’ve got.

A novel thought.

And you know what?  They made it work.  They made up games.  They had fun.  Rye sank into the slow pace at the beach even when his friend was not there and managed to enjoy himself.  We found things to do.  And again, we had fun.  And for a kid who has never been good at self entertaining, this was a major accomplishment.

_________

This past week since coming home we’ve had more of a cultural exploration.

We visited a museum and learned about Modern Art.  We saw a play, Cats [the musical].  And really, it’s been nice.  One of the things I notice the most these days, Rye is growing up.  He is maturing.  None of us were overly crazy about Cats and yet he sat through the whole thing with no issue.  He never once complained.  He simply commented, when appropriate, about what he thought of the show.  Just as we all did (it was all adults and Rye).  And most of it was constructive criticism. And in the end, we were all glad we saw it.

As Rye progresses this year into eighth grade, our focus in learning will shift.  We will add a dimension and go from learning not only the concrete but also the abstract.  And this will not be easy as learning disabled kids like Rye have a hard time with abstract concepts.  But you know what?  We’re going to try anyway.  And I think he can do it.  We will use poetry, art, life, emotion, the senses, experience.  All of it.

And most importantly, we will learn most of what we know outside of the classroom.

Because for us, that is what works best.

Well, Rye’s decision yesterday did not turn out to be a great one for him.  We ended up having to go pick him up from the friend’s house and he is now grounded from free time with friends through Christmas.  He also lost his bike.

Stubborn kid.

I am currently in a bit of a stand off with my boy.  I’m not proud of it but that’s where we are.   Why, you may ask?  Well, he wanted and wanted and wanted to go to a friend’s house.  Oh no, I said.  Oh yes, he said (there of course was much more to the story than this but this effectively sums it up).  If you go, I said, I am not coming to pick you up because I am asking you not to go.  Being the strong willed child he is, he politely looked me right in the eye, said he was going anyway, hopped on his bicycle and off he went.  On country roads.  With no street lights or sidewalks.  For miles and miles.  He then sassily called me from said friend’s house a while later and left a perky message on my phone that he got there and is fine and for me not to worry because he knows how I worry and he knows that I love him and he loves me, yada, yada, yada.

Oh, the joy of raising a strong willed child.

I’m starting to feel old.

I wonder how he’s going to get home.

He liked it!

He liked the overnight camp and wants to go back to another one next year.  Or maybe even two.

After picking him up I heard endless tales of intrigue.  We went and had lunch and he told me stories of good times, stories of bad times, stories of nice kids and stories of mean kids.  It was really fun to hear about all of the experiences he had and realize that he now has some real summer camp memories.   He was so proud of himself for making it through and seemed to feel really good about himself.  He said overall he had a blast.

And, here’s the best part, apparently the cabin that he was staying in was occupied primarily by a very aggressive and foul mouthed group of boys who already knew each other from school and other camps they had been to this summer.   They were all nearly literally half of Rye’s size (Rye is very big and tall for his age and these kids were particularly small, it seems) and yet they kept picking on Rye and trying to get him to fight them.  In fact one night they threw a full soda can at his head and bruised it just to try and get him to fight.   Amazingly though Rye never took the bait and finally told them all that he thought it was a complete joke they wanted to fight him because although they may hit him and hurt him slightly with a punch or two, if he was to hit them he would send them into next week and could really seriously injure them.  So he never did fight them.  And after a few nights of taking it he told the main counselor that they were driving him nuts with the wanting to fight and the camp director put Rye in a cabin with high school guys for the rest of the week and he liked that much better.  He said the high school guys were all really nice and much more mature than the middle school boys and were also physically all his same size as Rye so he didn’t feel like a giant with them.

I can’t tell you how proud I am of him.  And how proud he is of himself.

I really think the Depakote combined with the therapy is helping him make much better decisions and live a much richer life.  It’s not too long ago that I’m pretty sure confronted with those kids he would have just gone ahead and pummeled them into next week.  He would have just reacted to their comments and taunts and not have been able to just let it go and walk away and realize the absurdity of it all.

Progress.

The kid is growing up.