the mama trail

I have no idea what the future holds. About anything, really, but specifically regarding McKenna and school v. homeschool. But I do know that right now we are living such a beautiful unschooling life, and I plan to keep riding this wave as long as it is still working for us.

One of the blogs I read has a monthly post that chronicles all the things they do as unschoolers. Here is her most recent one. Inspired by that, I’m hoping to start doing monthly unschooling posts as well. Let’s count this as the first one! I think there are a lot of misconceptions about what it means to homeschool or unschool, so I hope this helps give an insight in to how we are living, what we do from day to day, and why the unschooling life is such a delightful life to live.

Things we are Reading
I don’t think I could list all the books we have read in the past month, but a few popular ones have been books about Mars, Spiderman, fairies, and princesses. In my eternal search for princess/fairie books that represent something close to the values I hope McKenna to have, I found a book called The Nutmeg Princess that definitely fits the bill.

Things we are Listening to
We are almost done listening to The Wizard of Oz. Not the movie, but the audiobook. It is 3.5 hours long, and is such a wonderful story. It differs in many ways from the movie, but has been entrancing for us all to listen to. McKenna is also enjoying the soundtrack to The Little Mermaid.

Moving
Hiking, scrambling way too far up the rocks at the base of Elden, going to the park, playing wildly in our backyard, hiking in Petroglyph National Monument (where we got to see two snakes as well as hundreds of petroglyphs), trail-a-biking, swimming in the (unheated) pool at our hotel in Albuquerque, playing in the water in Sedona for a friend’s birthday, filling an inflatable pool to splash in in Phoenix, and sometimes literally running around the house in circles! McKenna also seems to never walk anywhere, she “dances” there which is the word she uses to mean “skip with your legs flipping out to the sides.”

Creating
Towers and castles with legos and wooden blocks. Painting on her dollhouse to give it more color. Painting on just about anything: glass door, old cd’s, dolls.

We are also creating in the garden, and we found some rampion seeds to plant in McKenna’s garden. Rampion is another name for the rapunzel plant, namesake of the Rapunzel story. Evidently it is a biennial plant that is known to thrive in poor soil, developing a root that is similar to radishes, greens that are salad herbs, and beautiful flowers too. Who knew?! By following her interest in the Rapunzel story, our knowledge about this plant unfolded before us. Time will tell if it actually grows in our garden though. I’ve never planted seeds so tiny, so it is a learning experience for us both.

Playing
Rapunzel, Ariel, Dorothy, and Pippi top the list.

In fact, McKenna lives most of her time in a state of pretend. We run around pretending to be witches and Dorothy, or mamas and baby Rapunzels, or mermaids, or you name it really. She draws from the stories, movies, songs, and pictures she has seen, then changes and adapts or combines. She puts on dresses, ties ribbons, or tucks pieces of fabric in to her clothes “to decorate” them. She uses her dolls in the towers she builds and in the dollhouse to create magical imaginary worlds. Sometimes she wants things to look authentic, as in straight from the book or movie, but sometimes she just creates her own thing, like this wedding dress she designed:

Also, as my mom says, she always has her own soundtrack playing, which means no matter what she is doing she is singing some tune!

And of course there is all the time spent playing with friends. We have a weekly exchange with a friend (McKenna goes to their house one week, their daughter comes to our house the next); there have been 2 birthday parties, and lots of playdays both at friends’ houses and at our house.

Places we Have Gone
We bought an annual family pass to Lowell Observatory, and went on a clear Friday night to look through the telescopes and see the movie. We got to see both Mars and Venus that night. The same annual pass also got McKenna and Troy in to the science museum in Albuquerque while we were there. This has been the year of the monthly out of town trip, and Albuquerque was our most recent one.

Odds and Ends
McKenna is really in to counting right now, and we often include mathematical thinking in her counting too. Other hot topics lately have been cicada shells and skin shedding, pollination (thanks to my mom for the awesome video), daddy long legs, blindness, and death. Well, death has been a big area of questions for her since she was about two and a half, but it still comes up a lot. Talking so openly about death sure has helped my own comfort level with it, and has helped me explore some of my own beliefs and worries. We are both getting unschooled, in so many ways!

Know of any cheap, off grid land for sale that is within 10 miles of Flagstaff? We are ready to build an Earthship, or something like it.

Up near Taos, NM, there are loads of them, and they make so much sense. Amazing water capture and filtration (needs just 7″ of rainfall per year, use both your gray- and black-water), passive solar combined with thermal mass keeps a comfy temperature year round with no other heating/cooling sources, solar panels provide the rest of your energy needs, much of the structure is made with re-used materials, and you can grow all kinds of food inside. Sign me up.

We stayed in one that was like a tropical jungle inside, although outside it was high desert sagebrush. It was actually a little too much for us: despite being surrounded by plants, you felt really out of touch with the natural world.

(This was actually our bedroom’s wall)

McKenna’s favorite part was the koi pond inside the greenhouse part of the house. She spent much of her time pretending that one of the plants that had long strands was Rapunzel, and she was washing Rapunzel’s hair in the pond. Then on our drive home, when we stopped for a roadside break, the first thing she did was start digging in the dirt to build her own earthship.

(here is McKenna “washing Rapunzel’s hair” in the pond. Note the tin-cans embedded in the wall. Much of the house is built with tin, glass, or plastic cans/bottles embedded in the way. The glass bottles give an amazing glow, like stained glass but more jewel-like.)

We also got in some great skiing. Taos is an impressive ski area.

A <30 min drive had us to a trail above the Rio Grande, and a 5 minute hike down brought us to a gorgeous river-side hot springs. Back up the trail, cross over the bridge, and we were rock climbing. It was my first real climb in probably 5 or more years, but I did alright!

More pics to come from Troy’s camera…

This year we covered all our bases by celebrating the Winter Solstice, Chanukah, and Christmas, and it has been great. I know I’ve said it before, but life really is so much more fun when you’ve got a little one to share it with, and to find joy in the simplest things with.

For the Winter Solstice, we attended a Drumming into the Seasons drum circle, and had a little party at our house. At the party, we ate Shephards Pie, drank Mead, tied strings around a Yule log (the strings represented our dreams), burned the Yule log to send our dreams in to the sky, and for dessert I made a picture of the sun out of homemade whipped cream with peach slices for sunrays.

For Chanukah, we went over to the Luries house where the kids played dreydel (McKenna mostly ate up the raisins and chocolate chips rather than playing), I made latkes, Brandon made matzoh ball soup, Mackenzie made challah, and there was wine and delicious dessert. McKenna’s food intake for the evening consisted of: a piece of challah, the raisins and chocolate chips, some juice, and a cookie. When I told her she couldn’t eat any more sugar for the night, she brought a bag of Gelt (chocolate coins) up to me and Troy and said, “Mama I don’t want to ask you about this,” as she handed it to Troy with hope in her eyes.

We also celebrate the last night of Chanukah at my parents’ house along with my sister’s family and my grandma.

On Christmas Eve, we watched the 1964 claymation Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer. On Christmas Day, we opened presents in front of the fire, then went out to Sheep Hill for some super fun snow play. After sledding, skiing, and general silliness in the snow, McKenna started running through the forest pretending the Abominable Snowman (from the Rudolph movie) was chasing her up the mountain. She kept stomping up up up. I couldn’t believe how high up the mountain she was getting. We were following Troy’s snowboard tracks from the day before, and she was motivated to get to the top of the mountain. On the way up we saw a Bald Eagle. I think it is a good omen for the coming year!

Leaving Sheep Hill, Troy suggested eating at the China Star buffet. Since my only childhood memory of Christmas Day consists of eating at Chinese restaurants, it sounded perfect to me! And it was remarkably tasty too. The rest of the day was spent hanging at home, and that night we watched Frosty the Snowman after making homemade ice cream in the new ice cream ball that Troy gave our family as a gift.

Our only plan for New Years is to make Hoppin John on New Years Day, but between now and then McKenna and I are in Phoenix for all that encompasses (read: mountain biking for me, playtime with Grandma, Grandpa, and cousins for McKenna) and Troy is in the Inner Basin looking for some steep yet stable slopes.

Lots of sugar, snow, drumming, family time, and friends + exploring various December celebrations = a great holiday season! Hope yours has been wonderful as well.

…is what I hear all day long. Along with: Look what I did! Watch me! Watch what I can do! and so on.

It can be exhausting.

I remember when McKenna was somewhere around 1 or 2, new toddlerish, and she and I would play like crazy at the park together. There would be all these 3-4 year olds, all shouting to me (a stranger), “Look at me!” I remember inwardly shaking my head, judging their parents, figuring they must totally not pay enough attention to their kids. Surely they just ignore their kids until the poor things are crying out at the park for anyone to watch their amazing feats. I think I had thoughts along the lines of, My daughter doesn’t demand attention like that!

Yet one more time I get to learn the same lesson again: never, ever judge. Especially if I’m not there yet, but even then, I have no idea what truly leads to anyone else’s situation/decisions/choices. It really is the same lesson as: never say what you will or won’t do in the future, because it surely will invite the circumstance that will make you eat your words.

That isn’t the only thing I hear all day, of course. Nearly hourly I also hear, “Mama, I love you. I really like you. You are beautiful. And I love Sazi and Daddy too. There is just so much love in this family.”

Yeh, she’s pretty darn sweet that one. And so, so right about that last statement.

Yesterday:

in the morning, a slightly itchy sore throat.
took zinc, drank Ginger tea

feeling cranky and irritable.
a little itchier by midday, glands swelling
more zinc, hot EmergenC, and raw garlic

by dinner time, feeling chilled and achy in my neck
ate soup with garlic, ginger, and red pepper

before bed, getting really chilled, achy, and grouchy
hot shower, more raw garlic, a honey stick

went to bed. Extreme fever kicked in, extremely shaky/achy, feel like I’m going to barf. I get mixed feelings of panic (this hurts! I want to take something to make it go away!) and awe (my body is doing exactly what it needs to do to get better! Go fever go!).

By 3am-ish, fever subsides, hammering headache sets in. Teeth ache, sinuses ache, head like I drank a 5th of whiskey. Wait it out till morning.

Fever gone, head still pounding, I deem it ok to take some advil and go back to bed.

A few hours later, doing alright, and better throughout the day.

With a little help from garlic, zinc, ginger, red pepper, and vitamins…nice job immune system!

Do I have to be right about this?
In 50 years, will anyone care about it?
Have I noticed my last exhale?
Does my tummy feel tight? Are my shoulders up by my ears? Is my brow scrunched up?
Do I feel light or heavy?
What would love say?
Will this enhance our relationship? Will this build trust?
Does it really matter?
Have I looked in to her eyes?
Is my heart open?
Is there another interpretation?

Is it something I would say to an honored guest?