RU Field notes at 8 months; 'arted' potatoes

We have taken much longer to regain our balance after our visit to NC than I'd have thought. If it were usually that difficult we'd not go there for a whole month! In some ways we are recapturing our joy, though.
We carved 12 pumpkins for Halloween--plus some potatoes! First Burke (8yo ds) asked to carve a potato, since his carving energy exceeded available pumpkins (we'd already gone back to the store for more once). He announced that he was producing 'arted' potatoes (isn't art a good verb!) his first effort was carved into bits. His second became a bivalved oval box, amazingly polished. Emily (10 yo dd) took that idea and carved two potatoes into tiny jack-o-lanterns. Our new discovery of tiny flickering plastic candles made it safe for the tiny pumpkins and potatoes to be lit. Granville made sure to be awake for all this. He carved two himself. I have been so happy to find that if G (13 yo ds on a night owl-schedule) is warned of an upcoming fun activity during the afternoon, he will make sure to be awake for it. We have thus enjoyed his company on two hikes, some shopping, and halloween decorating 3 times! G said for him it was the best Halloween since we moved to town from the country (upon the dissolution of our marriage). This is saying something for a 13 yo who really looked forward to wearing a Link costume, then sadly decided when it came that he looked "like Peter Pan" and so he had no suit for Halloween. He carried a sword and a big smile.
Burke and Em are enjoying reading more and more, challenging themselves and clearly feeling so much more free and secure. Em did request a 'math lesson' in which she wanted a review of the symbols of addition and subtraction so she'd not forget them. She still says to her schooled friend that "Math is my favorite subject" but 10 minutes of official math was enough, and she hasn't asked to do that again. She has redecorated her room, explored more contemporary fashions, and sought to figure out the difference between high school and college. Burke has been a bit adrift as one of his 2 friends moved away, and his other friendship is changing. He is interested in figuring out money and telling time on a 'round clock,' not 'just a numbers clock.'
G is starting to verbalize some of the process he has been going through in his deschooling, which I suspect is a word not quite strong enough for the self-and-life-examination he's experiencing. He is not having an easy time of it. But such a thing is never easy. He talks more of how he felt when his dad lived with us. His dad was a parent whom I think would have liked to live when children were seen but not heard (and not too much being seen either, please). I knew that I was fighting for the kids' self esteem then but I see it didn't work too well. I am so grateful for this time G has to work on this. Because he stays up mostly from 5:00 pm to 7 or 8 am, I often wake up and spend 1 or 2 hours with him in the middle of the night. My goal is generally just to be with him. Sometimes he talks. I had felt like his deschooling was on a path many have described and although I'll admit I wouldn't hope that his whole life would be spent on the couch watching reruns, I felt that there was plenty going on inside him for now. He also began expresing dissatsfaction with continuing that, though he clearly hadn't decided where he'd like to go next. We discussed it. He asked for Rosetta Stone Japanese and we got it (Em got French and I got Italian!Fun!).
Then one night I woke at 4:00 am and felt awake, so I went down to be with G, saying I'd watch TV with him. He turned it off, and said, "So, how do you think this unschooling is going?" He had been a great proponent of starting it in March. I replied that I'd like to hear his thought first. It was then I discovered that at least right now he thinks of himself as "a 13 yo with a 2nd grade education." He said "I am going to run out of answers" and said that he'd come to feel that he'd been learning nothing since he finished second grade at a small private school. Which he hated at the time. This was not the same conversation in which he asked me to "push him through" 2 or 3 grades of formal curriculum so he could enter school and be popular.
He wants help to find more social outlets. I have gotten a list of some names of people with boys his age who homeschool. Not that we wouldn't be friends with school kids, but the two he has been friends with have given him the freeze treatment this year and he wants to look elsewhere. Also we discussed some afternoons spent with a large variety of people in the community, which I think will expand his social base, too. He had chosen to attend a tiny youth group weekly at the church right behind our house, but the other 3 attenders were girls and now 2 of these have moved away. Maybe boy scouts? I was thinking that Japanese language and visiting people in the community were a good start. But he has only used the Japanese once and he seems to be worried that he'll spend his life in the couch corner. Is this the worried, catastrophizing voice of my parents? I was never supposed to amount to anything either. Too scatterbrained and lazy. Too shy, too awkward. A fear-based assessment with which they meant to help me! I had a crash-refresher course in negativity this fall at their home and if I'd known what it would be like, our visit would have been a week, not a month!
Some of their fear rubbed off on me as it can, like a plague. I'd like to scrape it off me as if I'd fallen into a cesspool. I am angry and still working on my forgiveness. I wonder if this is why G is having this acute phase of doubt, though I think he has a vulnerability there anyway. I am just waiting and loving and trying not to let him down. I am frequently overloaded and can drop the ball if I am not careful.
So as usual life goes on. I love Anne O's reminder that life and learning aren't separate. I just read Holt's Instead of Education and I really appreciated the idea that education is something 'done to someone' and knew that's not what I see as valuable or desirable. I still need reminders; I am still deschooling.
We are working on some other long-range plans, too. We all want to go to Italy and have joined a house-exchange program. We also want to refurbish and partially remodel our 105-year old house (new floors, new paint, turn an attic into a room for G so he and Burke don't have to share). We have needed to do this for so long and just can't get it done around all our flotsam and jetsam. So--with friends' help we are taking most of our stuff to a shed and with a nearly empty house we can get it done. As long as I can help the kids with their fears that I'll jettison their prize stuff (I wouldn't) or turn into Ms House Before Kids (I couldn't) we can do it. We started yesterday before I came to work (all night) and the results so far made me so happy. Em and Burke were very happy all day, too. No bickering over small stuff as they had for several days, just very happy. Seeing my enjoyment of getting our home nicer might indeed have rubbed off on them. They offered to help quite a bit, including offering to take huge bags of garbage to the dumpter (higher than their heard). I mentioned that I'd love that but recalled having garbage fall on my head the year I was a janitor for a pizza place. So they tied the bags shut. Situation dealt with. They also cooked a pizza in the microwave in their own. they loved it, I loved it.
I had a stomach virus all week and Burke had it severely for less than 24 hours. Ugh. Hope no one else gets it. G had a bad cold last week, and gave himself 400 mg of ibuprofen while I was at work. He tentatively told me, and when I said, "That's great! I am sorry that I couldn't be here but so glad that you knew what to do," he said "That's exactly the response I hoped for." I think this deschooling is loosening my unconscious controls on them and I am so glad. I want to do that but I often can't tell where I need to do it.
So after Granville told me his worries about unschooling, I told him I thought that we were still deschooling and that I thought that was OK. And that I would get him a formula-style curriculum if he really wants one and help him understand how to use it but I did not feel he could be pushed through anything, nor did I want to, nor did I see the value in that. He says he learns best from hands-on, not from books and computers, so we decided to look into more of that (like the afternoon mini-apprenticeships) and see where it goes.
I am grateful to have this time with them!