Me In the Middle*

Last night I walked up a stranger’s driveway, my long wool coat flowing behind. My friend and I had to round to the front of the house to check the number. Yes, we had the right one. So on to the back we went, down to the spacious basement where coffee percolated, cookies smiled up from a Thanksgiving tray, flower-tipped ink pens made a centerpiece in a ring of comfy chairs. My second homeschool support group.

“Hello, my name is ...” I fill out my nametag and find a seat and in expected support-group fashion, we round the room and introduce ourselves. Number of children, ages, and for diversity’s sake, genders. “Hi, I’m Rachel and I have three, age nine, five, two. Boy, girl, boy.” Without a pause, the next woman says, “Cynthia, three kids, seven, four-and-a-half, two.” She pats her belly. “And this one due in the spring. Girl, girl, girl, and we don’t know yet.”

I had to think. Hard. “Uh, hi. I’m a little slow on Mondays. Um. I have one, almost five and one almost three and one sixteen months.” I didn’t follow standard form, but that’s not why everyone looked at me expectantly. “Oh! Boy, boy, girl.”

At some point in the evening, the Topic came up, a question asked by another visitor to the group. “Do any of you work, besides homeschooling?”

Without volition, my hand snaked up.

An immediate gulf grew. I wasn’t the only one who worked—but I was the only one who worked and didn’t need to. I don’t need the income, and Lord knows I’m not well-paid (even curriculum-writing gigs average little more than minimum wage). And it didn’t matter that I do my work from home, while the babies sleep and the oldest goes insane with boredom. Someone asked, “What do you do?” The gulf grew to a chasm.

My creative energy goes to something other than my children and family. Some days, I have very little energy for my family at all. I forgot Halloween, I have no Thanksgiving decorations or creative holiday rituals. My family is lucky I ordered a fresh turkey or I really would be thawing it in the bathtub (per Shannon’s suggestion). My passion isolates me, yet I have a dual passion and am faced with isolation on another side.

Tonight I will sit in the parent’s waiting area while my son has his fencing class, my tailored wool coat slung over my chair. A professional coat. “Where do you work?” one of the other mothers will ask. I’ll mumble, “From home.” I won’t want to explain here, to these people, the trials of publication, how I’ve seen a few essays bring in money, and the curriculum. But other than that, it’s an act of faith.

“She also homeschools,” another mom will whisper. Another chasm forms. I’m on a butte, a sea stack (see, we do study geography! We do!), alone, with desert sands or vicious waters swirling far below.

The first woman will smile wider than she needs to; she'll glance at the coat and nod her sympathy. It must be part of my old life, she will decide, and she will say, “Oh. Good for you! I could never do that!” I will translate in my head: “I’d never want to do that.” And the conversation will turn back to talk of day care centers, Kindergarten teachers. I will return to my book. No one here will notice what book it is. The chasm is too wide for them to see me now.

At this very moment I’m balancing a spiral notebook and pen with a bowl of oatmeal and spoon. I scribble my chicken-shorthand, pause to spoon a bite of goo into the baby’s mouth. Two very different tasks, both deserving of my full attention and neither receiving what they deserve. In the middle, is me.

My notes

*Perhaps an inappropriate title, taken from that show, Malcolm in the Middle. I’ve never seen it, but the title does have a certain ring.

First Lessons in Economics

Late last week my oldest lost his second tooth. It was quite the Event, complete with tears and blood and several hours of wiggly-tooth anxiety. St. Nick does everything at 110%, including losing baby teeth.

Hopes for the Tooth Fairy sustained him through it, and his hopes were not disappointed. But with a second tooth, like with a second child, it got the same excitement but it got a little less attention.

The Tooth Fairy made a special trip to the bookstore for the first fall-out and she had to enlist a few dozen of her fairy friends to help her tuck the monster-sized book about Noah’s Ark underneath Nick’s pillow. This time, no special trips. TF tucked a $1 bill under that pillow and added in an edible treat.

St. Nick was just as thrilled. He’s been holding his dollar ever since, scouring toy catalogues (which we have in plenty this time of year) for something to buy. The only problem being, his prize won’t even cover shipping costs, let alone the price of the least expensive item in the book (a set of plastic boats for $9.95).

And here I thought TF was being extravagant. A whole dollar? When I was a child, I got a quarter and a pack of gum. I couldn’t buy much more than a candy bar with a quarter, and I thought TF was horribly cheap; I’d rather have kept my tooth and made it into some strange native jewelry. But now, with a dollar, St. Nick is in the same situation. When did a dollar become worth so little? And why does my son have to learn that money, outside its potential to purchase, means nothing?

He’s not cynical about it yet. A dollar is still the coolest thing he’s ever owned. But it grieves me that once it’s spent, he’ll have nothing but a trinket or a candy bar. Maybe he should just keep the money.

One Small Triumph

In the unlikeliest of places, I had my first Moment of Triumph about homeschooling.

We all went to the dentist this morning. LoonyMom, Dr. D, St. Nick, Little Fish, and even Mud Pie. Always an adventure. I spent most of my time with Little Fish (who had his first exam and did GREAT!) and with Mud Pie and Little Fish both.

Daddy had to relate events to me, and for some reason, this makes the story all the more special. I guess while I had Little Fish in for our cleaning, the receptionists started up a conversation with St. Nick. This is a mistake. He is the most chatty child on the face of the planet - the only time he is not speaking is when he's asleep. And even then he's been known to say a few words.

So, they started in on the usual topics, "How old are you?" Five. "What's your favorite number?" Five. "Are you in school?" Like the smartypants he is, he replies, "I go to school. I go to Home School!"

"Oh."

And the conversation would be done. Except St. Nick doesn't end a conversation until it is ended for him by someone else. Finally, this had to happen, but not long after, as he and Daddy were having their teeth checked, the conversation picked back up again, this time with the dentist and his assistant.

"So you're homeschooled, huh?" And Dr. D (aka Daddy, in case that wasn't obvious) prods, "Can you read that sign?"

St. Nick eyes the advertisement on the wall. A big grinning mouth of brilliantly white teeth. "Ask Us How," he says without hesitation.

The dentist is impressed. Then he makes the mistake of asking St. Nick what he's learning about. This is a sampling of what St. Nick discussed: Ancient Egypt, the pyramids which were tombs for the pharaoh and built by the Hebrews who were whipped because they were slaves. And Moses who was sent to lead them out of slavery. And the ten plagues (he named eight of the ten). And our indoor garden (bean plants in a windowbox). And his sense of sight and how his pupil gets big in the dark but shrinks when he turns the light on.

This is why I had to sit in the waiting room with Mud Pie (who ate nearly a whole pack of graham crackers) and Little Fish for so long.

But the dentist was impressed, his staff was impressed, and everyone was amazed a homeschooled kid could be so socially competent and such a, well, a smartypants at just five years of age.

My smartypants

And this just three days after LoonyMom was not so smart, and when asked why she homeschools said something along the lines of, "Uhhhhhh."