a wide place

It’s 8:00 on Saturday morning, and I just dropped my oldest off at a local high school to take the SAT for the first time. Next I drove to a coffee shop in need of a strong hot coffee and to take a moment to process the season of life in which I find myself.

As a reminder, we currently have a high school junior and sophomore, and a 7^th and 6^th grader. Two high schoolers and two middle schoolers. Three teenagers and one pre-teen.

The changes have been sneaking up on David and me, slowly but surely, but this year feels especially different. This year we added an upperclassman who’s really beginning to prepare for his future and a second driver. In May we added a third teen to the household. That’s a lot of hormones, people.

Speaking of hormones, I’m about to turn 43 and find my own body seems to be changing. I laughed when I opened a book that described it as “second puberty.” I’m in a second puberty? We already have way too much puberty going on in our house!

I’ve been learning as much as I can about parenting teens in the last 5 years, but my own physical, mental, and emotional changes are taking me completely by surprise this fall. The thing about it that makes me laugh is all of a sudden it hit home how young most of our friends are. David and I love having a young church. It keeps us young. But I think we can easily fool ourselves into thinking we’re all peers. Until I suddenly find myself using words like “peri-menopause” with my girl friends and getting blank looks.

Thankfully they’re good sports and want to hear all about what I’m going through, and I also, blessedly, have friends my own age and a little older, so I’m asking them all.the.questions and reading books and going to various specialists for all these symptoms that need to be examined to rule out anything more serious (which has thankfully happened thus far).

Suffice it to say, I’m very much in a learning season all around.

I find it . . . humbling.

Now, I will defend parenting teens to my dying day. I love teenagers. And I really, really don’t like when people state that all family happiness ends when their kids hit middle school (or age 13). It’s simply not true, not if you’ve worked to grow family relationships and cultivate respect for one another all along. Sure, I miss the old days of slower schedules and lots of cuddles reading books together and all the Lego and Calico Critter play that happened on a daily basis.

But I actually enjoy parenting older kids more, even with mood swings and sarcasm and the occasional slammed door. And now that I have my third and fourth middle schoolers, I’ve relaxed a bit more. That angst will settle at some point. We won’t butt heads forever.

At the same time, David and I are more aware than ever how different all four kids are.

Parenting strategies that worked with some teens don’t work with others. This is a moment when I’m profoundly grateful for my and David’s differences. Often they cause us to argue! But truthfully, both our perspectives are needed to love these kids well, and particularly David’s right now. God is redeeming his own rebellious teenage journey to help him be especially compassionate with our kids’ sin and I need to learn from him. I love that. Nothing is wasted in the kingdom of God.

All of this reflection is leading me to tell you about a sudden pivot we’re making mid-semester, which won’t feel like a big deal to you but feels monumental to me. We’re enrolling Gabe and Noah in a homeschool hybrid school. They’ll go to school two days a week (Tuesday and Thursday), and be home with me three days. This school will take over all their school subjects except for math, and I’ll simply help facilitate the assignments from the school on the three remaining days.

This is such a change in my 12-year homeschooling journey because it’s the first co-op I’ve been involved in where I have no responsibilities. Since I gave birth to my first child, I’ve never had two full school-length days a week to myself. Not even preschool. Not in 17 years! I don’t say this to brag, because our educational path is just one way to raise kids, but in order to help you understand what a shocking change this is for me.

By now the two big kids are almost entirely independent for high school with all their various classes they take outside the house or online. But in terms of elementary and middle school I’ve been very involved in everyone’s education – either teaching them myself, or helping lead the co-op.

This is another part of our changes that was humbling; coming to the realizing in October that “This just isn’t working anymore.” It’s the first semester in our entire homeschooling journey in which I’ve never felt like we found a good routine. Granted, we began the school year with our big church move (more on that next post), which required a lot of my energy and attention. But even when my responsibilities were finished, I worked and worked yet couldn’t make my school routine with Gabe and Noah flow well and get all our subjects done with any consistency.

Judah is taking two dual enrollment classes this semester, which requires me to interrupt our routine to drop Amelie at her classes more often than last year, plus she’s learning to drive and has needed some help with Biology.

Anyway, you don’t need to know all these nitty gritty details. I don’t like the feeling of failing. I’m not good living in that discomfort. I guess I shouldn’t call it “failure,” I should call it “limits.”

Surprise, surprise, I have limits!

I mentioned to David that we may need to find another option for next school year, and he immediately responded, “Well what about next semester?” So I reached out to this hybrid school and prayed a lot, and they had spots for our boys! This sent me into a panic. Is it the right thing? The right timing? More prayer and a growing sense of peace. After our interview, they even said the boys can begin right away if we want. They want!

It feels like God has handed me this gigantic gift when I least expected it (smack in the middle of a semester), and an enormous weight is slipping from my shoulders.

We’re always open to putting our kids in regular school, but I just don’t think that’s right for now. A hybrid school seems to be exactly what we need right now, and then we can evaluate again.

I still want those three days a week at home with Gabe and Noah. I love the freedom that homeschooling affords for my active, adventurous boys . . . the hours to listen to audiobooks and roam outside and build Legos and look for snakes in their grandparents’ backyard. I also love our Morning Meeting, where we read poetry and memorize Scripture, sing our monthly hymn and folk song, watch World Watch News and talk about current events. I love our Charlotte Mason group, which meets monthly to study art and hymns and nature. I’m not ready to give that up, and I’m thankful we don’t have to.

I’m excited to let you know how our new adventure proceeds!