I have spent a lot of time in the last year or two thinking about what makes a living and what makes a life. I have considered choices and goals and the pursuit of excellence. I know I will never have all of the answers, but it would be nice to have a few. I know that not everything is in my control, and that sometimes that sometimes I don't always get His plan for me right away, sometimes I need to be hit over the head. I have also known that what I thought were the answers would likely change over time.
Six years ago, we put the children in schools in town. I sat in classrooms in the local schools and several town schools until I found a small school for the little one, knowing he needed more than was available in our area, including small classes, and knowing speech was an issue after stretches of time where he didn't speak. I knew the older one had become complacent, able to skate by in classes without a challenge, and needing more to learn and to be challenged to adapt to a more rigorous environment. Since that time, we changed schools once, which led to the much needed speech for Wyatt and the robotics for Bailey.
But the drive was killing us, and trying to meet the demands being placed on us by others led to letting other folks bully Bailey, and their demands stretched us so thin. Trying to please others so they would stop saying viscous things led to them having power over how we led our lives, trying to make everything work and in the end they only grew more vicious.
I fought to try to make it all work, even though I knew it wasn't working. And then I finally pulled my daughter out to home school Even in doing that, I tried to work within their system, ad it took three weeks to withdraw her, so then the school docked her grades even further. I had to send letters to superintendents' offices just to get the meetings. And then they acted as though they were doing me a favor.
So I am learning to stand my ground better. And earlier. And then, as we began to work with the school to prepare my son for fair, they began to put in obstacles. They didn't want him out, but regardless of the number of days he took off, there would be ramifications for his ability to make up the work. They weren't following through on any of their promises for the written plan, which they had modified in my absence last year, but they were going to put in additional barriers. Ugh.
So this time, I calmly said that I needed to truly understand where he stands. They don't think they will really know that, so taking him in to make him go through additional stress and exhaustion during the fair just doesn't make sense to me. Putting additional, unnecessary barriers to a child with issues just seems counterproductive to me.
But there are things he can do to work ahead and make the return easier. They yet again changed the rules of his reading, so we stopped to by some books at the used bookstore on the way home from school today. They didn't have the ones he was really hoping for, but he found some others that would meet these new rules and I told him to take one last look while I dashed off to the restroom. When I returned, he was sitting at a glass chessboard by two big chairs, with a hopeful look on his face.
We really didn't have the time. Bailey was at Grandma's house waiting for us after having gone to home school game day, and was doing her school work waiting to go home and get things together for fair work day. And a multitude of animals were waiting for us at home, wanting their evening treats and water change, walks and attention.
But I have spent far too much time rushing to meet the demands of the world. Running around making others happy so they wouldn't make the life of my family any harder. And in the process, there had been no time for my children to sit around and enjoy farm life, do arts and crafts projects or extra little science projects to just follow their curiosity and learn how things work. No time to be a kid.
I know better than to be resentful. Wyatt and I spend a lot of time talking about good qualities and destructive ones, as they give of their time and try to forgive others who have been unkind and taken and allowed their children to have fun in return. As Wyatt was worried about coming across boastful in his auction letters, and being like the kind of people he doesn't want to be known to be like. And Bailey gently reminded me that no matter how many lies were said about us, or how many good people believed them, that I had told them we could still be the people we could be proud of.
So I sat down and played chess. For over forty minutes, we played. A little boy came by, desperate to help Wyatt with strategy, so I let him, and closed my eyes and covered my ears while they talked about ways to win. And I laughed with him, and even tough I stayed ahead of him, I made sure to take the time so he could learn some strategy and reinforce the rules and how to get past situations.
I won in the end, but really, we both did. And we had a great talk on the way home together. And the animals still had leftover food, and Bailey was doing fine taking a nap on top of her Chem assignment, and the puppy had enjoyed her brother the old man Vegas. And when Charlie wanted my undivided dinner anyway when I was making dinner, I messed the whole thing up because I suddenly somehow thought I had it all together!
I wonder if they have a box for that glass chess set. We could have a lot of fun at fair with that thing. And after, too. We sure need some more laughter and strategy for ourselves in this life, where I take things a little less seriously. And live a little more. Yes, I think there my just be a case for this making a life thing. And a case for taking a little time for chess.
You all have a great day. I will keep learning. If you have a cool story about everyday reminders about the real priorities, please share!
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