Weirdness.

I often wonder and worry about what others will think of the little Steeds once they find out that we're a homeschooling family this year. At one point, that concern was almost enough for me to not dive into homeschooling even though I know in my heart of hearts that it's best for our family right now. I think the mere mention of the word 'homeschool' conjures up images of weird, socially awkward kids who have a closet full of jumpers and turtlenecks. The 'h-word' brings to mind kids who stay inside the house all day everyday, doomed to a life of boredom and a general inability to cope with the 'real world.'

I can't clean the lens through which you view my children. But this article summed up so well my internal responses to that all-too-common idea that many have of homeschooled children. That they're just. plain. weird.

Kids all have their quirks, their own little personalities, temperaments, likes, dislikes, comforts, discomforts. And don't we all? Little Steeds are surely no exception.

Regardless of education in our family in years to come, these little ones (Mama Steed and Daddy, too!) will always have those wildly unique and beautiful traits that make them perfectly themselves.

And that is something to celebrate!

Then Again, Maybe Not

My husband is a wise man.

He talked me off my blogging ledge last night as I got so fired up about blogging that I even missed the cycle class I had been so eagerly anticipating. The long and short of it: I'm going to continue blogging.

I have had the wrong outlook on blogging all along. I realized last night that ultimately what I desire is authentic relationship, friendship with others. That's been lacking in my life due to being in a new place, sick kids, my own introversion. I've been lonely, I tell ya. And in the midst of this loneliness, I've been trying to adjust to so many new things: a new town, new home, new community, new parish, adding homeschooling into the mix. It's been a lot to manage.

And I think, on some level, I was expecting that the blog would be a way to connect with people, to foster the aforementioned relationships. I felt discouraged then to see so many page views and typically no comments.

Waa waaaaa.

I said that one of the purposes of the blog was to keep in touch with others and provide some family updates. My pride reared it's ugly head again as I thought that closing down the blog would 'force' others to ask more about how we were doing rather than assuming they knew based on what they had read.

Lord, I am the lowliest of your creatures. Truly.

Here's the deal. I can have a blog and post whatever the heck I want on it...family updates, beautiful photos, my thoughts on controversial social issues, etc. But I can also develop deep relationships with people, despite any comment counts on the blog. Both a blog and the genuine friendships I desire can exist! Whodathunkit? I cannot and should not let comments dictate anything, and, as my friend Erin helped me realize, the blog isn't going to please all readers all the time...nor should I be writing in an effort to make it so.

Thanks for your patience with me, dear reader. And here's to more writing, photo-posting, and general Steed shenanigans.

This Could be the End.

Friends, I need to be honest with you. I struggle blogging. I always have. Some days I love it, some days I hate it.

I like to write.

It's a good outlet for me.

Little Steeds are amazingly adorable.

Friends and family can keep up with some of the goings-on here.

Those are all good things in and of themselves. But...

It is not helping me foster and maintain genuine friendships.

At various times throughout the last month or so, I have received many comments like, 'It sounds like you're doing great from what I read on your blog!' or 'I love reading your blog!'

Let me be clear. I am humbled that anyone would read the blog. And I know these comments are so well intentioned. But the blog is not mean to be a 'data dump.' I'm not interested in just writing down a bunch of stuff, posting it to cyberspace, and then doing that over and over again...all the while, I'm not having genuine relationship maintained with most of my blog readers. A reader knows bits and pieces of what's going on with my family, and, in the meantime, I do not know about how the reader is doing (and I mean how they are, not just the goings-on). And one might argue that the aforementioned data dump description is the very essence of a blog. In that case, I perhaps shouldn't have started it in the first place.

I highly value genuine relationship. It is tremendously important to me, and right now I feel that the blog is a deterrent of sorts. It's making relationship too one-sided for my liking. I will find another way to write, and I'll still post occasional pictures either in emails to friends and family, in the mail, or on FB once in a while. But I need real friendship. We're all made for community, right? I'm not willing to spend the time and energy on developing a bunch of friendships on the web through blog posts and comments. That's just not a desire of mine right now, though I know that approach works well for many.

Maybe the blogging doesn't have to be all or nothing. Maybe I'll post once in a while or something. And perhaps the blogging issue would be different if, in addition to blogging, I had solid friendships that were being maintained and strengthened outside of cyberspace. But that's not happening in my life right now, and I need to focus my energies on fostering community that's around me and friendships that I left in Lombard and elsewhere.

Thanks for your patience with me, and thanks for reading!

Stable Turned Infirmary

Doctor Mommy has been on duty 24/7 these last few days. A cold bug started for Thomas last week and seems to be resolving...then it hit little Dominic* but turned into hand, foot and mouth complete with small-but-mighty mouth blisters (yowch!). And tonight Maria went to bed with the sniffles as she tried in her persistent way to convince me that sleeping is not what she wanted to do. I can't remember if she fell asleep 30 seconds after that comment or 35 seconds afterward, but, in any case, she's out like a light now.

*I decided to take Dominic to Urgent Care yesterday as he had woken with a rash that was worsening. And it's a good thing I did. It was humbling to hear from the doctor that we 'shouldn't go anywhere where there might be other people.' Aka, stay the heck home! We were just getting into such a good rhythm, too, but we'll live up the time at home together. I promised Thomas and Maria that we'd have some extra fun snacks around, get some books and movies from the library (Sound of Music happens to be a Steed favorite), do lots of reading under cozy blankets, and throw some school in there, too. I'm sad that we'll be missing our co-op this week, but Drake has been great about taking on all child and home duties as soon as he walks in the door after internship to ensure that I can get out of the house. Tonight is different as Maria desperately needed me to cuddle with her in bed for a bit, but curling up on the couch to write while my husband grocery shops isn't all that bad!

In other news, I joined the 21st century and now have a smartphone. Sadly the phone has already outsmarted me, but humility comes in all forms now, doesn't it? I was quite resistant to this change as you may know, but then it happened. I dropped my phone in the toilet. Yep, RIP pantech phone. You were good to me. 

I mentioned on a Facebook post that I wasn't going to put my blog posts on my homepage anymore...I suggested subscribing to my blog as a way to stay updated on Steed happenings. I took a rare look at the stats tonight, and yesterday's post (the first after declaring this change) received 3 views compared to the previous post which had 114. As much as I don't write this blog for the attention that it might receive, I do want friends and family from afar to have some sense of what's going on at the Stable...

So, ummm...I guess I'll start putting them back on FB. I know there are all sorts of ways to publicize one's blog, but I just don't have the time/energy/interest in blogging to make all of those things happen. Sheer laziness and a few other things, I guess.

Okay, off to pour some red wine. It's been a day!

A Trip to Indy!

We met up with Grandma Eileen a few weeks ago in Indianapolis. How we have missed her! She generously treated us to a hotel stay as well as a trip to the Indianapolis Zoo, some delicious meals, and we capped it off with Mass before parting ways on Sunday. Here are some photos from the trip!

Family photo op

ANOTHER picture? Well, okay...

It was pretty...and bright!

Like, really pretty!

Cooling off

Smiling Steeds

Photo taken about 2 minutes before napping at the dolphin show

Can't wait to see you again, Grandma!

In Which I Give an Honest Look at Homeschooling

As with all things parenting, I have strong feelings about homeschooling in our family for this year. I am confident that the Lord is asking this of our family. I cannot think beyond this year, nor should I be!

I do think that I jumped the gun a little bit in terms of our approach as I fell prey to a few things:

1. I felt tremendous pressure to 'prove' homeschooling is legitimate. Some of this was due to pressure I put on myself, and it was also due to pressure/skepticism that I sensed from others. I know homeschooling raises some eyebrows. I get that. But if you have questions or concerns about our family's personal choice on the matter, then please just ask me! Last time I checked, I'm fairly approachable :).

2. Due to the aforementioned pressure I put on myself, I felt that our schooling needed to be socially accepted. And so, I tended toward something that was accredited. Accredited schools are good and wonderful, absolutely! And we will still be supplementing with our current curriculum. There are many great things about the curriculum that we chose, but it is all workbook-based. This isn't working for us so far for a few reasons:

• School is becoming something to just 'get through' for my oldest who is only at the tender age of 5. I don't feel that the workbook approach is fostering a love of learning for him. It's becoming something to just complete, shut the workbook, and move on to something else. He's not excited about the work, and admittedly, I'm not excited either.
• We came from a wonderful montessori school which is all based on a more tactile experience of learning. Workbooks are a far cry from that. I want workbooks to supplement our experiences, so I'm surely not ruling them out altogether. I do think that learning can and should extend far beyond workbooks. That's just like, my opinion, man (Lebowski reference, anyone?).

Our family needs a different approach to education. I have spent much time trying to determine if our current approach isn't working due to my own laziness. But honestly, that's not the issue here (my laziness comes into play in many other aspects, but that's another post for another day!). The issue is that Kindergarten learning should be foundational and help foster a love of learning. Our current approach is not achieving that in our family.

My outlook on Kindergarten is this: lots of reading, some math, some writing, gross and fine motor work, virtue, and socializing. Reading poems. Listening to good music by way of concerts and music played in our home. Focusing on quality over quantity. All of these can be achieved in many ways. I'm trying to work in more art projects as well and always strive to be living the liturgical calendar.

Just as a family might switch schools at the end of the year if the school (public, private, Catholic, montessori, some combination) wasn't working for their family, we are switching approaches as well. Families switch schools all the time, change their level of involvement, add extracurriculars, etc based on what their family needs at that given time. Those choices are all in an effort to serve the needs of their family. Our choices are no different.

And so, it's time for a change. With Charlotte Mason as my inspiration, I hope to take a more holistic approach to education in our home.

St. Philip Neri, pray for us!

Unexpected Grace

Drake and I had mapped out some time for me to take for myself this morning. I was going to head to adoration, catch a spin class, and come back home. Sounded simple enough.

None of that happened.

As my phone bit the dust this weekend, I took the ipad with me as I wanted Drake to have our one functioning phone with the kids. We agreed that I would email if I needed something while I was out. So I left our home around 7:30, headed out to the van, and figured I would look up directions from there. Well, before I left the house, Maria was screaming about who-knows-what, Dominic was struggling, and I decided I would just go exercise at a more local Y and try to get to adoration. Then I would be back home in time for us to head to the Labor Day parade.

Well, as with many well-intentioned plans, this didn't pan out either.

I couldn't access the Internet from our dear old van, and so it meant that I couldn't look up directions to either of the places I had intended to go. So I came back in the house, figuring that I'll get some of this personal time at a morning retreat that I'm planning to attend tomorrow at a local parish.

I came back into the house. I'll just go upstairs and exercise with Jillian.

You guessed it. This didn't pan out either. So I snuck away for 3 minutes to send a quick email and then was notified that breakfast was ready.

So I instead sat down to breakfast with the rest of the Steeds...yummy pancakes compliments of Drake. We had started a rousing conversation at the table (the topic of which I admittedly have forgotten). And then...

I dropped my coffee. All over myself. And all over sweet, unsuspecting Thomas. And all over the floor. And all over the chairs.

Thomas started screaming. I started silently stewing (alliteration intended) about the events of the last 2 seconds, cleaned up the mess, and headed upstairs to shower. Drake helped Thomas calm down, change, and get back to breakfast.

Wasn't I supposed to be adoring our Lord in focused contemplation and working out the frustrations of the week in a spin class right now? This seemed like a far cry from that.

I came back down after a quick shower and rejoined our family breakfast. Maria and Drake were sharing a pancake. Thomas was dressed, calm, and eating. Dominic was off playing somewhere. But things were somewhat peaceful. And I reveled in this.

I took a moment to sit back and just marvel at the moment. And I realized that I didn't want to be anywhere else but here. Truly. I didn't have to work very hard to make myself be okay with all the changes in plans. I just was.

Instead of burning calories, I was consuming them. Instead of sitting in quiet solitude, I was in the middle of controlled chaos.

And I was at peace.

Praise be to God.