Five Minutes

My kids love trick or treating. We don't actually "celebrate" Halloween, but we let them dress up as something friendly and go to their grandparent's for some candy. This year I heard about Halloween at Batsto from my sister-in-law. There were games, hot dogs and pony rides. Sounded like a great family fun day.

After lunch we got Gracie dressed in her bat costume and headed out (Caleb refused to dress up). Luke fell asleep in the car, and actually stayed asleep after I put him in the stroller. We visited with our family and the kids talked to their cousins, then got in line for a pony ride. It was really relaxing.

After the pony ride Gracie saw a bucket of treats. They had them set up at every game station. She asked if she could get one, and I said, "Sure, let's go play some games and then you'll get a prize!"
So we walked down the trail, away from the ponies and into the section where all the old cabins are. Gracie decided to play a ball-toss game. I stood about two feet away, and when she finished the kid in charge of the game said, "Ok, grab a prize!" I smiled at her and turned back to Jeremiah.

When I turned back again, she was gone.

I gave Jeremiah a puzzled look. "Where'd she go?" he asked. " I don't know, she was right here." I looked behind a big tree next to the game she played. I looked behind a family next to us. I looked around at the other games.

Gracie isn't the kind of kid to run off by herself. She has always stuck right by me, always kept me in her peripherals. One time she burst into tears when I walked a few feet away at the store and she thought I left her. It was slowly dawning on me that if she wasn't here, it was because someone took her.

I ran behind the cabins and scanned the wood line. I ran back to where the crowd of people playing games was. "Gracie!" I called. A few people glanced up, surprised at my volume. Everyone was in costume, wearing black like Gracie, blending together. "Gracie!" more looks. I ran into the bathroom. "Gracie!" Back into the crowd. "GRACIE! GRACIE" Everyone was staring at me now. "Why don't they do something?!" I wondered. My life flashed before my eyes. Not my past life. My future life, my life without my sweet baby girl, my life as the mother of a missing child, a life of police calls and news segments. A life of not knowing. Somewhere in my panic I had a moment of clarity, and a feeling of something like, "this is the moment every mother dreads, but never believes will happen- the moment your old life is over and a different, , horrible, half-dead life begins."  I thought this was the last picture I would ever take of her, the last picture of her sweet little face.

I started running up the trail now, screaming louder than ever. At this point I wanted everyone to pay attention, to know something was wrong. "GRRAAACIIEE!"

She ran up by my elbow. "Right here!" I stared at her. "Where were you?" I didn't recognize my voice. It was hoarse and shaky. "I went to get a prize", she shrugged.

I guess she is the kind of kid to run off by herself.

As if in a trance I turned and started walking back to the car, which was difficult now because all my limbs felt like jello. "You wanna go home?" Jeremiah asked. I couldn't even answer. I just kept walking, Gracie's hand tightly in mine. A relaxing family day had almost turned into a nightmare.

We got into the car and I immediately dissolved into tears. I cried off and on the whole way home, and when I got home I laid down because my legs were still shaking and I felt like I couldn't breathe. I'd say it took me a good two hours to calm down. But all evening, the event kept playing through my mind like a video.


When the kid running the game told her to get a prize, I turned my back and she took off running, down the trail, all the way back to where the ponies were. Knowing Gracie, she probably sifted through the prize bucket and took her sweet time deciding what she wanted, which in the end was a bag of cheese curls. Then she had a leisurely walk back in our direction, until she heard me screaming like a maniac and decided she better hurry up. I don't know how long she was actually gone. Maybe ten minutes? Probably more like five. But they were by far the longest five minutes of my life, five minutes in a hellish world without my child. 

It made me realize that, as homeschoolers, this is one area we need to emphasize more. My kids are always with me. We get together with safe communities of friends and family. Of course we've told them, "don't talk to strangers", but they are definitely not as street smart as I was at their age. Gracie saw no danger in running off by herself to grab a prize. We had a good long talk about what happened, how dangerous it was, and what we will do in the future.(Specifically,  NOT RUN OFF!)

The thing that I STILL cannot get over is how fast she disappeared. One of the things convincing me she was abducted was that it seemed impossible for her to run off that fast. I had my back turned for one minute- but that was all it took. Scary. Even now I get a sick feeling, thinking about how differently it could have turned out. All those people -in costumes- making them impossible to identify. Candy and ponies everywhere, prime fodder some evil sicko could use to lure my daughter away. But it didn't happen that way, and for that I thank God. Because even though I turned my back for a minute, He never turns His. He was right there, holding her hand tighter than I ever could.                      

I don't mean to brag, but...

...well, actually, I do. I am going to brag on Gracie right now and how stinking smart she is! Because it's my blog so I can do that. :)

Yesterday we went to our class at the Wetlands Institute. We went last year and loved it, so I signed Gracie up again. This month's class was about Bats. Gracie has been interested in bats for a while, and enjoys reading cute books like "Stellaluna" and "Bats at the Beach". This year our Science curriculum is Apologia's "Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day" and includes a chapter on bats. So when I found out that was the topic at the Wetlands, I decided to skip ahead in the book and do the bat lessons, in addition to some books from the library.

The teacher at the Wetlands started the class off with a friendly trivia game. Each side of the room was a team and had to discuss and answer some questions about bats. Some of the questions were easy, like, "Are bats really blind?" and some were harder.

Here's the part where I start bragging.

Gracie knew the answer to every question. She knew that bat babies are pups. She knew how many thousand insects they eat in an hour. She correctly guessed that there are nine different species of bats in New Jersey. One of the things that made me the proudest was when the teacher asked a question that all the other kids said was False. Gracie kept insisting that it was True, and she wouldn't give in. And she was correct. I was proud that she didn't doubt herself, and that she didn't let the other kids change her mind. She had confidence.

Then the question that brought a little tear to my eye. The teacher said it was a bonus question, and it was ok if nobody knew the exact answer, but if they were close enough they would get it. "What disease is killing off a large portion of the bat population?" Now, Gracie's seven, and we were in a room with some kids up to thirteen, and the moms were helping with answers too. None of them knew the answer. "Is it rabies?" a mom whispered. "No!" said Gracie, "it's white nose fungus!" The mom didn't think Gracie could possibly know and asked some of the older kids again. I gave Gracie a thumbs-up. The teacher asked for the answer, and Gracie told her.Two bonus points.

It was a validating experience for me. It's working. Homeschooling is working. Gracie is learning so much, and being challenged more than she would be in a traditional school setting. We have days that are full of interruptions and days that we don't feel like doing it. We have days that run perfectly. In the end they balance out and yes, she is learning something! A lot, actually! But more than that is she's enjoying it. Learning is fun and exciting to her, and as a result she's able to really understand things and retain all this information about bats and birds and Pilgrims because she wants to know. And that has been one of my main objectives from day one, to teach her to love learning. Once she's mastered that, nothing can stop her.

The Folder System

Last year I used a lesson planner called "The Well-Planned Day". It was designed specifically for homeschoolers. It had a calendar at the beginning of each month, subject squares to write in, extra boxes on the side to record extra-curricular activities, and even space in the back for recording grades. It also had Bible verses and "insights" strewn throughout the pages. It cost me $25 and for that amount of money I was sure it was going to improve my homeschooling- no- my LIFE.

It wasn't a bad idea, but it just got so...boring. Writing everything down every week, when I pretty much knew in my head what we were doing. Writing down the pages, then getting them out, every single day, and tearing out the pages for that day. I know that sounds like something really small to complain about, but it got to be one of those monotonous things that I just got tired of doing. The planner was fine, but it was just more than I needed. All I really needed to do was keep track of which workbook pages we were on.

I shopped around for a different planner this year, but I couldn't find any I liked. Then I came up with the folder system.  I bought four folders and labeled them for every school day (Thursdays we go to co-op).

 Every weekend, I get out the books for next week. I tear out all the worksheets and coloring pages, and put them into the correct folder.                           

Then I'm done! Everything is ready to go for the week ahead. We just get up, get out the folder and the books we'll read (our curriculum provides our reading schedule) and everything's set. I don't need to look at the workbooks again until the next weekend. It helps me to get it all done at once, and it helps Gracie stay motivated because she can see exactly what's expected of her every day. 

It also helps when I need to take care of the boys. I can tell Gracie,"finish the Language pages in your folder while I change Luke", and she can stay on track. A couple of forty-cent folders save us time, and the money I would have spent on a day planner.

Co-op

Probably the biggest change to our homeschooling this year was joining a co-op. We went for the first time last week and the kids loved it! I had contemplated joining last year, but was unsure if I could make that commitment- Luke was still an infant, it was only our first year homeschooling- but this year I knew I was ready. As much as I love the homeschooling lifestyle, it felt like it was time for us to get out of the house for something on a regular basis!

Co-op couldn't be more convenient for us. It meets once a week and is literally five minutes from my house.  The kids start with opening exercises- flag salute, praises, prayer requests, announcements, and then they break into classes by age groups. Classes last until lunch, and after that they kids are free to play.The moms take turns teaching for a four week session, and you can pick any topic you want. At the end of each session there's a family night where everyone get together for a pot-luck dinner and the kids can show off what they learned to dads and grandparents.

My biggest concern about joining was how Luke was going to handle it. He is my anti-social child and screams when I leave him anywhere, but he did awesome! I snuck out of the room, which made me feel kind of evil, but it worked because he was pretty happy the whole time. He almost went to sleep on one of the moms! He and Caleb are in the same group and they went on a nature walk and collected leaves and acorns and stuff. So cute.

Gracie already had some friends (one cousin even) in her group,so that was a bonus(not that she would have any problem making any, lol!) She is learning about space right now. Her teacher made paper mache planets with them AND they made their own ice cream for snack time! How cool is that?

I teach Gracie's group in January and Caleb and Luke's in May. I'm doing a unit on music with Gracie's group. I want to make it fun- make our own instruments, paint to music, maybe find a copy of Disney's "Peter and the Wolf".For Caleb and Luke's class I'm doing farm animals and I'm HOPING to time it just right to have some chicks hatching...we'll see ;)

It's so encouraging to see how all the moms work together and do their best to make the classes fun and interesting.  Unlike a job where people sometimes show up and do their work half-heartedly, everyone gives it their best, because they want the same for their kids. And it's nice for the kids to meet with friends on a regular basis- not because they won't be "socialized" otherwise but because it gives them time to form those steady friendships that will last for years.