The Call to Rest

"These days with kids at home pass so quickly" I've often heard, in fact so often that when I hear them in the midst of them, I admit to rolling my eyes a bit and feeling a bit like a cartoon student hearing the "blah blah blah blah" of the teacher. I have definitely repeated a mantra of, "long days, short years" as a kind of balm over the worst of days, the ones where all the plans go out the window while you hold a sobbing child, clean up messes that ought to have been avoided, make dinner again because the first one flopped. But it is sinking in, a bit.

This past summer, on the first day of a mild August, the oldest of my children turned nine. NINE. It hit me harder than I expected as I made the requested LEGO Ninjago cake, that we are halfway "done" with the race to adulthood, and in reality, probably more than halfway. With the passing of the years, more things will pass - how many themed birthday cake years will I have left?! How many discussions about his LEGO creations do I have left? It got a little emotional as I carefully layered fruit rollups over the cake man's molded body. The process took longer than expected as I took frequent breaks to tend to my one month old baby, my youngest boy.

I admit I've enjoyed the youngest in these tender months a lot more than I was able to enjoy the others - maybe because PPD interfered with my firstborn's first year, and definitely because I had multiple small busy people to tend to with my second (7yrs) and third (4yrs) born children. This fourth, born last July, my beautiful bonus in my mid thirties, has me appreciating motherhood in new ways. And it's not just that I'm appreciating the baby stage more. I'm savoring each of my children more, feeling with them, more deeply.  I'm listening better. I'm more deeply convinced that building our relationships is the most important part of our homeschool days. Even amidst the burnout, I've been learning this.

Along that line, I've been reading a fantastic book about the concept of schole, or restfulness in our school days. Not restfulness as in relaxing and laziness, but restfulness as in peace, a calm assurance, confident faithfulness to the tasks at hand. Restfulness in the creation of margin, in freedom from over-filled days. I'm really looking forward to exploring more about how this concept will allow us to deepen our understanding of our academia and our other learning experiences here. I already feel that it will definitely strengthen our relationships with each other, which is one of the reasons we've chosen homeschool. I've got some awesome kids, and each day I forward to watching them bloom. I don't want to miss it.

One of my favorite quotes so far from this book is this one: "What if, instead of trying to make the most of our time, we worked harder at savoring it? What if we were more lavish with our time and more detached from our checklists?" (Sarah MacKenzie)

Yes, what if we ceased with the multitasking and used up all of our focus on one thing? How would that transform our days?  How would I be a better mom, a better wife, if I laid aside as many distractions as possible to listen, really listen, be present and engage? I would guess it would only benefit all of us.

So with renewed vigor, we begin. We are working together as a family to simplify our lives, so that we can restfully live, at peace, with purpose, deeply. I'll keep you posted. *grin*