We like to start our school year a little early.  And by “we” I mean me.  And by “like” I mean feel obligated to.  We will take a vacation in October, and we like (all of us, not just me) to take extra time off for Christmas, and since I don’t want to end school in July, early has to happen.  So today is it – the first day of our 2020-2021 school year.

As with almost every other first day of school for the past 11 years, it has been a mild train-wreck…well, at least for me.  Somehow, good sleep is hard to come by before the first day of school.  There’s always something.  Last night (in addition to my naturally poor sleep), there were thunderstorms seemingly all night long, and an early morning awakening to find that my three year old had wet the bed, soaking pjs, pillow, bedding and (because mattress pads had slid to one side somehow) mattress.  So I woke up fighting exhaustion and trying to curb an encroaching rotten attitude.

Right away, we got behind schedule…only slightly, but enough to frazzle my nerves even more.  Truth be told, the older four have had mostly smooth sailing today; just a bit of searching for experiment materials, and some clarifications about schedules.  The younger two, not as smooth.  Lessons took longer than I felt like they should.  One child vacillated between plowing ahead without instruction, and asking questions about the most obvious (to me) things.  I realized that I never found one of the books I needed for science.  I still can’t find it, after searching the house top to bottom twice now, so I ordered another copy that we will be waiting on for 2 weeks or more.  Which means I’ll need to improvise.  Improvisation is not my forte.

Now I sit here, writing.  Because my brain can’t switch from school to other life at all easily, especially when I’m tired.  I know the kinks will get hammered out and we’ll get into a good rhythm with our days.  It doesn’t come naturally, though, and it doesn’t come without a cost to other areas of life.  Sometimes I feel like I should have more to do for homeschooling…that I slack off and don’t do enough.  More and more, though, I’m realizing how much I end up doing when I don’t realize it – when the day passes and I feel like I didn’t get anything done, only to recall the dozens of questions, problems, conversations about schoolwork that happened in the midst of the day-to-day, non-school tasks.  It overwhelms me sometimes, when I get to the end of the day and think I worked really hard today, and I still feel so far behind, but it also makes me think that maybe this education my kids are getting isn’t as shabby as I’ve often thought.

Nathanael is thirteen today.  He’s seemed a bit more excited about this birthday than some others, probably because becoming a teenager is kind of a big thing to a kid.  I kind of wish there was more excitement in life to accompany the anticipation.  As it is, though, Nathanael is someone who generally appreciates routine and familiarity and stability.  Though willing to test limits, he’s also perfectly okay not doing something that disrupts his sense of well-being.  He’s just fine being the lone dissenter on suggestions for any family fun ideas that also involve a long car ride (“long” usually means anything more than 20 minutes, haha).  He’s happy to while away the afternoon hours with a book, but he is also an avid lover of games (board games, card games, outdoor games, computer games…really anything) and will happily take advantage of any opportunity to learn a new one.  He is a proficient baker, mostly because he loves sweets, but he can hold his own in most other cooking endeavors, too.

He is super smart (though grammar might be his achilles heel), funny, sarcastic, and deeply compassionate.  I know I’ve mentioned it often, but he still slows down to walk with whomever is at the back of the pack.  He’ll quietly take on extra tasks to help me if I’m having a rough day.  He’ll snuggle his littlest brother during movie time.  He will also come out with a smart-aleck response at inappropriate times, or sometimes laugh when being scolded (though, minorly in defense of this, he DID laugh in response to pain for the first five years of life), but is generally a good-natured kid in most situations.  He is a good conversationalist and a deep thinker.

I’m a big fan of this kid and I’m so thankful for these thirteen years we are celebrating today.