Disorder, Anxiety, and Re-Connecting with Grace

Wow- what a week. It's been some time since we've travelled so much, and settling back down after all our recent trips and dramas has been interesting. The house, for one thing, exploded, and I confess I don't deal well with disorder. I try to make an effort to focus on "people before things" in times like those, but the clutter and the sticky floors (STOP wandering into the living room while eating popsicles, kids!) are very distracting, and it was no less true this week. Dave has also been working on the last few details of some financial deals that are probably good things for us - at least I desperately hope so - but the stress of that kind of thing hanging over my head is very stressful, and it all washed over me suddenly upong returning home, as I hadn't thought about any of it while we were at my mom's. And speaking of Dave working, in the past two weeks, he has worked between 70-80 hours each week - a blessing on payday later, but a huge strain on everyone in the meantime, especially given the major disruptions on our usual routine.

One would think, therefore, that it might be a good idea to let schoolwork rest for a few more days, but we had started just after Aimee returned from camp, and I didn't want to take a long break again after having only a few days under our belt, so I asked them to do a couple of things here and there this week. Naturally, you might have thought I was asking them to go the moon, and that added another layer of stress. I kept thinking maybe I should pull back altogether and go with the typical school schedule, but I wondered if it would just be harder for them to get back into things after an even longer break - I think it would. As it is now, we have a basic load - just some math, history, handwriting, grammar, and, for Aimee, spelling (although she's a terrific speller already and could probably skip the book, but I'm not about to tell her that yet!). We've been reading together all along, of course, Aimee still devours books, and Drew, despite his lack of confidence in himself in this area, reads with an ease he doesn't even recognize - so that already fits easily and naturally into our day. I've been trying to let them dabble in the their new books, easing into things at a non-threatening pace, but so far it's been a disaster. Aimee has been extremely resistant to almost everything ("Grammar is a worthless subject!"), and Drew's anxiety levels about it have been through the roof. Last year he was breezing through his math and answering off-handedly any and almost all questions from Aimee's math, so I thought he would love getting back into that at least, but as soon as I pull out, for instance, a fact sheet (with problems he did last year and still knows effortlessly), he melts into a crying heap on the floor. For him, it's not so much that he doesn't want to do it; rather that he protests he can't - "First grade is too haaaaaaarrrddd! I can't do it! I don't like first grade!" He's so distressed about that it's really distressing for me, especially with something like his handwriting pages. I thought I had made a purposeful effort to stress practice and a good effort over perfection with their schoolwork, but every time he begins writing, he dissolves into more tears, wailing that it's not perfect and he'll never be able to write. On Thursday, after a couple of these moments and many of Aimee's "Why do I have to do this?" moments, I had a mother-of-the-year meltdown myself. " It's not supposed to be miserable in the first five days of a new school year! I can't take 175 more days of this!" - at which Aimee picked up her spelling and begin to work in it. When, slightly calmer, I assured her that she could just take a break, she replied timidly, "I don't want you to get a ticket, Mommy," (Ever since she saw me mail off our association dues and learned that it was the legal thing to do, she's been concerned about it). Ever get that sinking feeling in your stomach, when all you wish you could do is take that moment back and erase the deer-in-the-headlights look off your children's faces? Please, dear readers, tell me I'm not the only one who knows that feeling!

But really, it truly isn't supposed to be miserable in the first few days of first- and third-grade homeschooling. I know things have been crazy, and school could get less so as soon as everything else does, but WILL everything else become less crazy? I don't want to let my children get in the habit of feeling overwhelming anxiety, and of hating what's supposed an enjoyable time of learning together. Yesteday we all went to the store and bought a cart full of school supplies, hopefully inspiring a better feeling of fun and excitement. I'm also going to buckle down and return to our own morning lists, which obviously provide comforting structure for everyone. And we're going to pray, pray, and pray some more, that the outside stressors will lessen considerably, and that until they do, we'll all be able to cope with grace.