When marriage is hard, what does it take?

I don't often use this space to reflect on my marriage, but let me be honest: I wouldn't be emboldened with the courage, confidence, and resources required to fuel all my pursuits at home, at work, or anywhere else without my husband and his deep investment in our relationship and his relationship with the boys.

We were married in Lodi, California under a grove of awesome deodar trees that fanned out over the garden of a small winery. It was gorgeous, intimate, every detail thoughtfully planned and organized together. At 22 we shared a naive confidence and optimism for our future, yet only a shred of understanding for the weight of the lifetime commitment we'd just made to the other.

The unworn path of marriage is without a guide, unless you are fortunate to count on the marriage of your own parents to lead by example—but even then there are no guarantees. Much of the work of marriage happens behind closed doors, as so many transformational aspects of life often do, hidden for privacy or shame or just because that's the way it's always been. Few are privvy to what real marriage looks like until they are square in the middle of the one they claim as their own, and faced with the inevitable hardships that come with long-term love.

My shared history with Andy now covers more than half our lives, a friendship found first in the hallways of highschool where we met at age 15. Our story continued in Richmond where we went to college and then came full circle as we made our way back to DC to embark on our early careers.

One morning I woke up with double vision, which was just the beginning of a 2-year journey into the turbulent world of Grave's disease, an auto-immune disorder that had gone misdiagnosed for far too long. By then, muscle wasting had made me so weak that even the most inconsequential aspects of my day had become serious physical burdens: getting dressed, standing on the metro, walking ten minutes to my office. Other symptoms—an inability to sleep, a racing heart, and tremors in my hands—made me feel on the verge of losing my mind. I had been told for months that I had anxiety and needed to "stop thinking so hard about everything." Finally, I went to Georgetown University Hospital for a second opinion.

Once formally diagnosed, we put our plans to have a baby on hold and devoted our energy to my care. At 23 I had to brave the health care system and make some really big decisions about treatment options in light of myriad side effects and longterm outcomes. The burden was oppressive at the time. The physical and emotional stress was so intense and I felt alone in the worst ways possible. Depression had begun to creep in, and I truly wanted to be free from all of it. I wanted to be well again, I wanted a baby. The pain of being sick and unable, and without ability to plan for our future, I wanted to forfeit my responsibilities. The bad and the good, I wanted out.

When it mattered most, when our marriage was in the darkest and rockiest place we've ever gone together, it was a sliver of hope and the bold decision to separate (under the supervision of a therapist) that gave each of us the space and opportunity we both needed to care for ourselves (to debrief on what had come before) and then to knowingly, as adults, choose our marriage again.

I'm so grateful for that. For light in the face of darkness and for the freedom to be separate and together.

To make that choice, over and over again, throughout our long lives, I imagine this to be the true work of marriage. Because to walk away would have been far easier.

Our 16 year relationship has been genuine in its existence. It has been dark, and muddy. It has been bright. With such a young start, we effectively grew up together practicing and learning how to treat (and not treat) the one we loved most. I'm not proud of all of it, but that is the truth and it is life. As very real and complex as our faults and fears and vices and temptations have been, what proved to be stronger was a vision we shared for what could be, a hopeful intention to persevere, a willingness to forgive, but ultimately an effort on both our parts to stay engaged.

Taking that first step—to re-engage—it didn't come easily or simply, I had been out of practice for so long. Grave's disease had served as a catalyst, bringing to the forefront an accumulation of many little things in our relationship that had gone un-addressed over the first 9 years. I let the circumstance convince me that I could give up because it was hard.

Now, with 9 years of marriage in our back pocket and as we emerge from the first intense years of parenting (Roscoe turns 5 this month!), we're both feeling an electric appreciation for how we have shaped our history, and how our history has shaped our marriage. If there is one thing that I learned through our experience, it is that every couple gets to write their own contract in marriage. We get to choose the scaffolding that bounds our relationships. We don't have to conform to what we think marriage ought to be. We get to create the marriage that resonates within us.

We've won out so far. A deepened love the prize. A solid marriage the outcome.

We win! We win! We win!

We've earned a life partner equally matched in intensity, and dreaming ways, and a willingness to take risks, and an eagerness to continue to create and live a good life together, and best of all the privilege to co-parent these two maniacal boys that we've borne.

Second chances. They can be hard to come by but they are worth it. Happy 9th Anniversary to the love of my life. With all my heart.

On Sabbatical: a practice in Savasana

I've been on sabbatical for the last four months. I needed to put away my phone, step away from my email, and live without the expectant urgency of being on call. The start of the new year felt like great timing.

I was intimidated to declare my intentions for a break—it felt risky because MamaBorn had great momentum and work was very steady—but I knew it was what I needed, and it felt like good practice to listen to that inner voice of knowing. It felt even better (in hindsight, at least) to reply YES.

Yes, take a break. Yes, your work and everything else will benefit. Yes, you will figure it out.
Ah, sweet relief.

Not counting two maternity leaves, I've never taken a full break from paid work. At first I felt naked with a clear calendar. It was hard NOT to think about MamaBorn, or some variation of MamaBorn. I found it a challenge to circumvent the natural spontaneous brainstorming that had become my routine. It was hard to stop from dreaming up new projects for MamaBorn, new approaches to marketing, new services, and new formats for delivering birth education to expectant parents. I had to force myself to adopt the savasana mentality—a challenging yoga pose of total relaxation—and resist the urge to think or make or do anything in particular.

This card hangs in my office as a reminder. Credit: Colette Paperie.

I spent January cheerfully but reluctantly settling in. I talked a lot—to anyone who would listen—and brain dumped my nervous energy into my journal to try to clear my head and regain clarity on what my next steps would be. (An iterative process that always brought me back to my intention to master Savasana.)

February was devoted to catching up on a long list of accumulated to-dos that had created a life of their own while I was enraptured with work and family. My office was a disaster and the changing season called me to clear our home space to make room for whatever was to come. So I cleaned, and purged, and organized everything under our little roof.

Writers block had also been pressing hard for months so I enrolled in a creative writing class to try to get out from under it. Timed writing exercises and mandatory read alouds tenderly pushed me beyond my comfort zone. It was terrifying and inspiring. I realized that ordinary life—theirs and even mine—offers universal narratives that are interesting and so worth the writing and telling. I found a new perspective for the censors that live in my head and gladly re-claimed my writers voice.

In March we declared our commitment to homeschooling, and here is where I acknowledge the ways in which the choices that Andy and I make for our family life directly impact my ability to devote energy and time to my paid work. Our priorities have shifted yet again, and I'm just sitting with the uncertainty of all of it and holding space for the possibilities. It is an uncomfortable place for me but I'm getting better at riding out these known unknowns. (I think I accepted the likely ebb and flow trajectory of my career within the the first few months of new motherhood.)

Here it is the end of April and for now, due to Summer travels that begin next month, my Sabbatical continues indefinitely. It feels impossible to know how much energy I will have to pursue MamaBorn in its current incarnation, or even the possibility of another baby, until we begin our homeschooling journey and I can see it unfold in real-time,

How do you mentally juggle career and family? How do you live in the present? Does Savasana come easy for you?

Lessons from nature on bats and rabies

Last Friday, Roscoe found a dead bat by the river.

It was a tiny bat that fit so sweetly cupped in the palm of his hand. We guessed it was only recently dead, it's brown fur too soft to resist, with velvety wings that fanned out.

My little expert on the natural world—well-versed in all things Kratt brothers and Jeff Corwin—Roscoe was incredulous at this chance sighting of a real bat. He couldn't contain his joy and reached out with bare hands before I could properly devise my approach.

I told him at first, "Only with this stick," and demonstrated how he could gently lift up a wing, or even flip the bat over entirely to get a better view, and then I offered it to him to give a try.

It crossed my mind to follow the lead of a friend who was sharing the trail with us that day, she firmly made it clear to her own children that in their family they do not touch dead animals. I vacillated but Roscoe's contagious energy swayed me. The way his fingertips danced across the bats belly, gliding up over its face and caressing those fuzzy ears. By my own omission he claimed the bat as his own, the newest member of our crew—4 kids deep and two mamas trailing behind.

Roscoe hung the bat by its claws from the side of his outstretched finger, "This is what a bat looks like when he sleeps. See, his wings fold up like this. Isn't she a beauty?" He was using a familiarly proper and most scientific tone to narrate the bats characteristic features.

He walked on to the beach and buried the bat in the sand, then picked up the corners of its wings like a little napkin, heavy with a sandy load, and carried it over to the river's edge where he slowly dribbled the granules into the water's murky depths.

He washed it next, meticulously dipping its wings and then submerging the furry corpse before wringing it out like a washcloth and darting back up into the treeline for more batty adventures.

By now I was thinking it was time to let the bat go.

One called out to give it a watery grave. Yes, I agreed. "Throw it into the river!"

In hindsight, in just this one case, I'm so grateful for my four year old's insistence to not listen to a word I say.

"Bury it in the sand!" another said.

"Hang it by its toes on the bark of this tree?" I pleaded.

Get rid of it, we encouraged. "It's time."

But he was adamant that when he finds bats in nature it is easy for him to get attached and next he insisted that he would much prefer to bury it in our backyard at home.

No. That was going a little too far. "I'm sorry, but that's not happening," I empathized. "I know it's hard, but you must."

I wrestled him for the bat and dropped it into the nearest dark space that I could find, just off the trail where the weeds grew tall.

What came next: 

Back at home as the day was winding down, a nagging little feeling hung with me, and so while the kids made believe they were pirates in the backyard, I pulled up the CDC website to settle my mind about rabies.

Any contact with a bat—dead or alive apparently—warrants a call to the pediatrician. The triage nurse insisted and we complied: call the police to dispatch animal control, retrieve the bat's body from the trail and arrange for it to be tested, head to the emergency room to begin the rabies vaccination series.

I couldn't believe it. Really? No one had been bitten, the bat had been found dead. In fact, Roscoe, Merritt and I had all been "exposed" having touched the bat to various extents and so we were all candidates for vaccination. (They were very confident on this point.) I was told the boys could only receive their doses at the Emergency Room, a potentially exorbitant cost for a series of 4 vaccines each, but Rabies is 100% fatal and so there wasn't room for skepticism.

Roscoe and I stayed at the pediatric emergency room for more than three hours. The nurses fawned over him coaxing him to repeat his version of the story to any newcomers.

"Now tell her. What did you find by the river?" They would say with anticipation. "And where did you touch it?!" Everyone was hysterical at his telling, nodding somberly and stifling their amusement as they waited for the best parts.

Roscoe would articulate from the beginning and then point to his nose and mouth with a smart grin. He did touch the bats teeth, but not the tips, he only rubbed them across the front he would say, demonstrating with his finger on his own teeth. "I didn't touch the canines," he assured us. The details were becoming clearer to him with every telling.

When we were alone though, I could tell he was a little frightened, alarmed and bummed that his play-date with the bat had come to this. He made me promise to go first when it was time to get our shots.

Around midnight, after consulting with the state epidemiologist and other infectious disease experts we learned that because the bat was in custody we could go home and wait for the test results to come in on Wednesday.

If the bat had been rabid and if any of us had even truly been exposed, the statistical odds felt so far-fetched that we doubted it was true and so we were not surprised, though terribly relieved, when we learned that the test results came back negative.

How do you balance your children's curiosity in nature?

My First Fermented Tea: Kombucha

A few weeks ago a friend came to visit and she brought with her a gift for me in the form of a baby SCOBY (or Symbiotic Colony of Bacteria and Yeast). They are pretty hearty and I kept mine in the cupboard for a week while I waited for a good brewing vessel to arrive.

Our local grocer carries kombucha on tap and I've been more than a little curious about the recent homebrewing craze. This is my first go at making my own kombucha and so far I like how unfussy and forgiving the process is. At least it seems that way!

SCOBYs thrive in a nutrient mixture of tea, water, and sugar. To create the nutrient I boiled 2 liters of spring water, and steeped 8 bags of black tea for 30 minutes. Then I added 1 cup of sugar and another 2 liters of water and let the nutrient reach room temperature overnight before adding my SCOBY.**

After securing the jar opening with a rubber band over a square of cotton fabric to keep out any little bits of dust or curious bugs, I left it to sit out on the counter for another week or so. (I like that precision is not key to the brewing process.) When I taste-tested the kombucha, it seemed about right—a little tangy but still pretty sweet, with a teeny tiny hint of that effervescence that I love so much.

I could have consumed it then, but I like kombucha best when it is really bubbly so I bottled it up for a second fermentation to give the carbon dioxide a chance to build up for good carbonation. I left this batch flavored plain but next time I think I will try for an easy addition like grated ginger or vanilla extract.

**A few little particulars: High heat will kill the SCOBY (so don't put your baby SCOBY into a hot tea bath) and SCOBYs don't like metal (so no metal spoons or containers can touch the SCOBY or the brew, if the SCOBY is still in it).

Update: On day 2 of the second fermentation, the kombucha tasted great but there wasn't enough fizz. On day four the flavor was pretty sour but the fizz was good. I will try again but this first batch will be repurposed as fruit spray or used for other household cleaning needs.

How We Came to Homeschool Part 4: Looking forward to kindergarten

This is the last post in a four Part series about how we came to our decision to homeschool. 

If you want to catch up on the rest, check out

Part 1: Let me Begin at the Beginning
Part 2: Saying Yes to the BoldHeart Life, Saying Yes to Homeschooling
Part 3: Calming the Fear and Moving Beyond

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The preschool year ends on May 29th, the same day we'll be heading north to coastal Maine for an extended Summer vacation. I'm planning to take advantage of all the natural learning opportunities that we'll encounter there by getting plenty of PBH journaling practice in while we are away. When we return home in the first of week of August I'll refocus my attention to readying myself for a September start to the upcoming school year.

Fortunately, the three most important aspects of my preparation are already in place. I've reorganized the main spaces in the house to encourage Roscoe's independence and to maximize everyone's ability to enjoy spreading out and getting to work (this was part of my homework for the PBH Master Class), my journal lies in wait, and we have integrated into our routine dedicated project time by virtue of the fact that Merritt will be in preschool for a couple hours each morning of the week. Of course, Roscoe will be able to work on his projects at any time, but we'll both benefit from having an hour or two set aside every morning when he can expect my undivided attention.

Sometimes planning long-range can feel overwhelming, so another feature of PBH that gives me peace about homeschooling is that I don't have to write weekly or yearly lesson plans. The curriculum is child-led and emergent so I need only to observe, document, and mentor Roscoe's process and help him to dig deeper into his interests as he explores them. I love the simplicity of it.

We'll continue to look to nature and the changing seasons to inspire our activities throughout the year, exploring art, the great outdoors, our community, and whatever else strikes our fancy.  Although we are taking an informal approach to the kindergarten year, I am looking into a play-based elementary Spanish course offered through a local homeschooling academy. One day I hope we can all be conversationally fluent.

I also made a list of the themes and holidays that I want to acknowledge or celebrate in a timely way—this isn't really homeschooling related but knowing that he won't have that structure outside our house has compelled me to make it one of my priorities. I'm sure that developing a new daily routine will be in order too as we transition into new and different ways of spending our time together and apart, with Roscoe at home and Merritt in preschool 5 days a week. Eventually, I look forward to letting go of the construct of the "school year" all together so that we can really take advantage of the flexibility that living off the grid offers to all of us--maybe working year round or perhaps taking off the Winter or other portion of the year as it appeals to us.  

I'm still considering local co-ops and other opportunities for Roscoe to routinely work and play with his peer group. I've started conversations with some of the families of his preschool buddies to create opportunities for them to continue their friendships but the kids are all headed to different school districts next year so I'm thinking it may be a challenge as our need for social time outside of school hours will likely be higher than theirs. I've considered starting a project-based group or a lego club, but also feel that the newness of all of this may be more than enough for me to tackle in the first year. I would love to join in with an already established and thriving group of families, but I haven't found it just yet.

I gather that homeschooling life is ever-evolving and there's still so much I don't know but I'm just going to go for it and learn through doing.

If you're a homeschooling mama do you have any tips or advice to offer? I would love to hear!

How We Came to Homeschool Part 3: Calming the fear and moving beyond

This is Part 3 in a series about how we came to our decision to homeschool. 

Catch up on previous posts in the series:
Part 1: Let me begin at the beginning 
Part 2: Saying yes to the BoldHeart Life, saying yes to homeschool

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While I loved the overarching promise of how PBH could enrich our lifestyle and family culture as one that supports and promotes meaningful work, I still needed to find my confidence in homeschooling in general, which was buried in fear that choosing to homeschool would deprive Roscoe of something crucial—information, skills, relationships, or experiences. I wanted to be confident enough to think outside the box of education as I've always known it. I wanted to see how far we could carry this homeschooling gig past kindergarten. I wanted to explore the data and I wanted to to know what is best in education.

You can read all about Project Based Homeschooling at the Camp Creek Blog, but the gist is this (excerpted from the What Is PBH? primer) :

Project-based homeschooling combines your child’s genuine interests with long-term, deep, complex learning. It is the part of your curriculum when you mentor your child to help him learn how to direct and manage his own learning.

PBH works with any homeschooling method, and it can be a way to unschool. It is the essential portion [you get to decide how big that portion will be] of your child’s learning life when you devote time to helping him do his own self-chosen, self-motivated work. 

• You create a space dedicated to doing meaningful work, set up to both attract your child and allow him to work independently. 
• You offer him an interesting variety of high-quality materials and tools. 
• You build blocks of time into your routine for project-related learning, making, and doing — time when you are available to support and mentor. 
• You become a trusted resource who will take him where he needs to go and help him meet his own goals. 
• He provides the interest and the ideas, so his work is self-motivated. You help him keep track of his plans, intentions, and questions.

—Lori Pickert, Project Based Homeschooling 

It was easy for me to see right away the logical connection between this approach and say, art or the natural sciences, but how would his interests organically arch to complex mathematics or the physical sciences like chemistry? How would Roscoe learn to read? Do homeschooled kids go to college, and how? Would Roscoe be a weird kid and then a weird adult? (I don't mean only in the sense of being different from his public or private schooled peers, but would homeschooling affect his affinity for meaningful relationships with co-ed friends and eventually romantic love?) What about socialization, and how much extra effort and added responsibility would be required to create opportunities for him to develop friendships outside the context of compulsory school days? What quintessential childhood memories would he miss out on by not attending traditional school? Would he be "well rounded", and is that even important? What opportunities are available to homeschooled kids for joining sports teams and other extracurricular activities? How would he learn a foreign language? Would he be satisfied later with the choices that we're making for him now?

At the same time that I worried about how I would facilitate Roscoe's academic experience, I also worried about how choosing to homeschool would affect my life. I had for the last five years assumed that when Roscoe turned five he would be off to school every day for much of the day, which would free up my time for another baby or a return back to full-time work, perhaps. Our commitment to homeschooling the boys would mean no school day away. Ever. Could I handle a pregnancy and another baby in addition to this new responsibility to homeschooling? What about my career, would I ever have the time or desire to go back to work? How would I carve out time in our schedule to pursue my personal interests and work, and nurture my need for time alone? Could I be a good mother and a good mentor? Would choosing to homeschool even further isolate my mothering experience? Would I be able to hack the homeschooling lifestyle—would our time together crowd out other (better) influences, and would it serve to magnify the less than perfect parts of me? What if it was a negative experience for all of us? And frankly, who did I think I was to take on both these roles, I know nothing about any of this education stuff!?

It was easy to feel overwhelmed by all the what-ifs, so before I got too carried away I bought the book Project-Based Homeschooling. I needed to understand the big and little ideas of PBH to know if it was truly a good fit for us. Through reading the book I fell in love with the method. I felt that if we were to choose to homeschool, PBH was definitely for us!

I began to furiously research every facet of doubt, worry, or wonder. I started a Home Education Pinterest board to bookmark articles on the topics that resonated with my thinking process.

In January I met with Roscoe’s preschool teachers to discuss his personality and learning style, his strengths and weaknesses academically and socially, and to get their perspective on what they thought would be the best learning environment for him. Public school, Waldorf, homeschool? While I was excited about the opportunities that homeschooling offered to our family as a whole, was it the right fit for Roscoe? I wanted to hear their perspective on everything.

Then, in an effort to learn more about what homeschool looks like in real life, I had coffee with several local homeschooling mamas to hear what the experience is/was for them, what methods and curriculum they used, how the decision played out for them over the years, what their children thought about it then and now, and what their kids are up to these days. Every meeting inspired confidence in the process, and encouraged me to take small steps in my own journey.

In February I enrolled in a 6 week online PBH Master Class that bridged the gaps in my knowledge about the method and the nuances of its implementation. I joined the forum and had direct access to Lori for all my specific questions. While I initially thought we would "unschool" through exclusive PBH, I realized that we want to also incorporate some academics after the kindergarten year.

Last month I attended two introductory sessions at the VAHomeschoolers Conference, Homeschooling 101: Homeschooling for the Non-Homeschooler, which helped me to see how my family fits in statistically with the larger homeschooling community, and Beginning Homeschool an overview of the law and getting started. I'm already looking forward to attending the full conference next year.

It has been a steep learning curve and while there have certainly been days when I felt like I was having an identity crisis, through my research and exploration of our decision I am feeling very comfortable and confident to trust myself, and trust my kids, as I always have in my role as their mother.

I don't know what is the best environment or approach to education, but I do know that traditional methods are not the only way to instill a love of learning, or to help children become strong thinkers, learners, and doers for success in a life of their own choosing. Homeschooling is one option in the patchwork of educational choices available to us, and to choose the best method of education for my kids, and for my family, feels as deeply personal as any other parenting decision that I've been charged to make so far. Roscoe's memories of his childhood and of his learning will be just as good as mine were, they will just be different. Yes I sometimes wonder if I am cut out for this, but I don't want to choose not to homeschool based on a fear that I am not good enough. I feel called to the challenge, and I am motivated by the potential rewards of negotiating and navigating authentic and lifelong relationships with my sons. There are few things more important to me.

Just as I trust that the boys will become skilled thinkers and learners, accept and work through their mistakes, and ultimately find out what they are good at and what inspires them, I trust that I will find my way as their mentor. I'm giving myself permission and opportunity to learn and grow alongside them. I doubt this first year will work out exactly as I imagine. I don't think it will be easy, but parenting never is! I truly hope that homeschooling will be for us everything that it promises to be, and that we will forever homeschool but our intention is to take it one year at a time and always remain sensitive to everyone's needs.

Next up, Part 4: Looking Forward to Kindergarten

How We Came to Homeschool Part 2: Saying yes to the BoldHeart Life, saying yes to homeschooling

This is Part 2 in a series about how we came to our decision to homeschool. 

If you haven't already, check out Part 1: Let Me Start at The Beginning

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My favorite fridge magnet from the lovely Colette Paperie

A few weeks ago we received an acceptance letter from the Waldorf School for Roscoe's kindergarten year. I waited until the very last day to respond knowing that it would make our decision final. In my note I shared that we had recently made the unexpected decision to homeschool and that Roscoe would not be enrolling for the 2014-2015 school year. The Director's message back was to the point: “Well, that is a surprise!”

After years of assuming that our kids would attend public school, and then the last two and a half years spent establishing a relationship with the local Waldorf school in anticipation of that kindergarten acceptance letter I wholeheartedly agree, it has been a rather quick and unexpected change of heart. I’m giving myself at least a few months to let it fully sink in.

I rely on my short and long term plans, which umbrella numerous lists and goals. If it's in my head it gets put on paper. The exercise gives me mental clarity and a sense of direction while it also offers some semblance of control. Though I haven't always given myself the freedom to change my mind or to stray from the Plan, my mothering presents a very compelling circumstance. The big and little decisions I make deserve my full attention, particularly the ones that affect my kids, my work, and our family life. Allowing myself flexibility to diverge from even the best laid plan gives me the greatest chance to get it right, to grow with my kids, and to give everyone a voice in how our journey unfolds.

I’ll never say never again. 

Back in December Andy and I shared some wild conversations in the dazzling calm that followed Christmas. By wild I just mean that I doubt our former childless selves would have guessed that their future parent selves would be the kind of people who give birth at home, or bedshare, or breastfeed into the toddler years, or quit their jobs, or change their worldviews, or homeschool, of all things. 

I couldn't have seen it coming, but lying nose to nose in the pitch darkness of winter provokes courage in the same way that difficult or passionate discussions are often made easier by riding in a car while staring out of the window at the streetlamps passing or far off into the distance where the sky meets the road. In the face-close of night, the illusion of infinite space exists to fill it up with what you really mean to say, to be bold with new ideas that come to life and grow big above our heads and then drift late into the sleeping hours. And that moment when I mistook Andy's silence for having fallen asleep? He surprised me with words that rang like truth, affirming my greatest hopes with his enthusiasm and support. 

I came across Lori Pickert's blog about project based homeschooling (PBH) on a whim internet search of homeschool and Reggio-Emilia—an approach I've become familiar with through the boys' preschool. Really I was just exploring the possibilities for after Roscoe's kindergarten year in an effort to look at all of our options. While I had my own misunderstandings about who homeschools, and why they homeschool, and how it looks or how their kids fare, I was immediately struck by the ways in which the PBH approach offered a natural extension of our parenting and really embodied the vision that Andy and I have long shared for our family life. Project Based Homeschooling resonated in ways that for the first time made it possible to see myself and my family as the homeschooling kind.

Homeschooling really took hold of our imaginations when we considered how we could more creatively use our time and money to live our big ideas. At the time we were considering just the kindergarten year, but what if instead of paying $7500 for private school we homeschooled and used that money to begin to travel to all the places we've always wanted to go?

I was soon on the internet reading “Top 10” and “Best Of” family vacations, pinning to my Family Travel Adventures board with wanderlust that suddenly felt surprisingly within reach.   

Admittedly, we are inexperienced travelers, particularly with children and especially internationally. We quickly tapered down our expectations and found equilibrium mapping out several small East Coast trips that we could really get excited about. When I booked a small lakehouse in Maine for 6 weeks this Summer it felt like we were really getting on to the good stuff.

With more discussion about finances, and priorities, and the life that we really craved to live, I committed to the idea of homeschooling with ~68% of my heart.

But I still had so many questions.

Up next, PART 3: Calming Fear and Moving Beyond

What's the BoldHeart life? 

How We Came to Homeschool Part 1: Let me begin at the beginning

This is the first post in a series about how we came to our decision to homeschool. While I'm the first to admit surprise—even shock, some days—it is an exciting step in the "it just feels right" direction for our family. When we get started in the Fall I imagine I will write about the details of what homeschooling life looks like for us but in the meantime, I want to write on how in the world we came to choose homeschool in the first place! For those of you who have followed our story for a while, this first post may repeat some background info from my more recent posts about Making Home, with the added details of how Roscoe's kindergarten year influenced our decisions about where to live.

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When we moved back to Richmond in 2012 we found a cheerful cape rental with a cramped floor plan and a big backyard. The neighborhood was appealing, but we really chose the little yellow house because it was around the corner from the “best” school in the city. Even though the boys were so young, we knew that our plans for buying land and building a home were still a few years down the road, and it seemed a reasonably good chance that Roscoe would be a kindergartner before we moved again.

Two years into city life—making the most of our house and otherwise living very merrily—we were a few months into a contract for rural land just outside city limits where we hoped to build our new home. We had planned to stay at least another year in the city, just long enough to close on the property and complete construction.

When our landlord unexpectedly announced plans to put the yellow house on the market at the end of our lease in November, we briefly reviewed available houses in our favorite areas of the city but realized that in the rental market you may as well wait to look until you’re ready to sign. We held off until a month before we needed to move, and after touring a few homes nearer to the boys’ preschool we opted for an even smaller (but enormously better laid out) ranch with notably less charm than any home we had ever lived. The fact that it was also the cheapest home we had ever occupied was a bonus and meant that we could effortlessly shuttle away into savings another few hundred dollars each month for contracting our architect. Another appealing feature was that five minutes in the direction opposite from preschool was the Waldorf kindergarten that we had chosen for its unique play-based curriculum. (Why play based kindergarten? Click here.)

We signed an 18-month lease with a month-to-month option that offered a cushion in case our timelines ran behind target. We assumed that because our yet-to-be built home would be completed mid-school year, we couldn’t know what first grade would look like for Roscoe—there were so many variables at play. We stayed focused on our plan for kindergarten and knew that we could figure the rest out later. In a worst case scenario we thought we could continue to drive the kids into the suburbs for private education, but we remained hopeful that perhaps there were amazing alternatives to be discovered in the new county’s public or private school systems. 

We moved unceremoniously over the course of a few weeks in October. We packed up everything that we had stuffed into the little yellow house and hauled it across the river. We carefully stacked one-third of our furniture into the garage, laid out another quarter of our belongings on the floor of the attic, and neatly displayed what remained throughout 1200 square feet.

Shortly after we settled in, and during the study period of our land inquiry, we learned that the county had plans to build through a portion of the property in order to widen the main road fronting the lot. After careful consideration we decided to let the parcel go, which meant that we were 18 months committed to a sufficient but distinctly transitional home that we had strategically chosen for reasons related to a project that was no longer and, of course, to our intentions for the children’s education.

Next up, Part 2: Saying yes to the BoldHeart Life, saying yes to homeschool
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