Sifting Sand

I stood on two sandcastles today. Don’t get the wrong idea. I did not go down the beach with a maniacal “Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!” destroying children’s creations. We were there after hours. After all of the castle creators except my own had gone home. There were only some training lifesavers re-enacted their emergencies. An older couple with hip 1970’s attire batting a ball back and forth with beautiful teak ping pong meets badminton paddles. A couple of joggers--a young man tall and skinny and an old man short and hugely muscular. A hard bodied woman trainer in her pink “Bring It” shirt and her sweaty recruit looking like she wanted to beg for mercy. A mom not much older than me stopping to collect her not-much-older-than-mine sons. Flagging them down in the surf, arms waiving above her head, shaking her head as the older one signed “One more” several times then disregarded her head shaking and paddled back into the surf. She didn’t seem annoyed. Her boys were only maybe a year older than mine. Tan. Long haired. Well worn wet suits. Such a good microcosm of Australian life. 

The beach was quiet but the water was full of surfers. Waiting all in a line. They look a bit like ducks when you watch from the shore. Mine were in the water too. Not quite as far out as the experts. Managing their unwieldy styro boards. They stood up a few times. Huge grins on their faces. Then came in and spent the rest of the time jumping off sand dunes and covering themselves in sand. Wanderer and the Littlest played in the surf. Hilariously cute in their matching wetsuits.

I was too cold to brave the water. So I walked along instead. Picking up seashells. Watching seagulls. Glad to be free of the house--which was Wanderer’s point in bringing us here so close to bedtime of course. Tears put aside for a few minutes. The frustration and anger with inflexible landlords. Negligent management companies. Frustrating exchanges. Written and re-written then tweaked and re-written again emails trying to be firm, but not put anyone off. A seventh week gone by with a dysfunctional oven. Kind of an important feature when you can’t eat anything from packages and cook nearly every meal at home. A nagging feeling that originates from old wounds of being trapped, of not having a home.

Near the rockpools at the edge of the beach I spotted the sandcastle. Already partially reclaimed by the tide its ramparts were softened, towers brought down to size. So I stood on it. Feeling strangely connected to this soft and slowly disintegrating piece of art on the sand. I was a small island raised slightly above the waves as they rolled in. The clear truth of ‘what’s wrong’ hitting me somewhere near the lump in my throat, the tears just behind my eyeballs. 

Lately my homes feel much like sandcastles. There is the joy of their creation. Hard work shared among our little close family. Friends invited to add bits here and there. The  chance to enjoy our handywork for a few fleeting moments, but knowing that the tide will come in soon. Not sure when or how quickly. It will come though. Sometimes gently and slowly washing away our work. Sometimes crashing in and taking it back all at once. Then on we go. Pack our things and move to the next space. Not too discouraged to attempt a new masterpiece, but perhaps making things a little smaller, a little less grand. Enjoying the feel of the new materials. The new view. But knowing that the waves will come and wash us away to another location. Wondering where it will be. Who will share the new adventure. How long we’ll sojourn there.

The waves have completely reclaimed my sandcastle island. I cry a bit. Then walk along until I find another one and enjoy the view from atop it until it too is reclaimed by the waves. 

more laundry therapy

Shorts and underwear, towels and tshirts, a few napkins and socks and miscellaneous items from the top of the counter. Whites and darks and reds and whatever was in the pile all getting thrown in together. Today I just couldn't be bothered. I just want it all clean. Done. Over with. So I threw everything in haphazardly, picked a nuetralish temperature and hit 'go' on the washing machine.

My dryer is sitting on my porch. As my sister will tell you--we're half redneck.

I suppose it shouldn't surprise me when metaphors arise--as they often do--out of the stack of laundry in my baskets. I spend a great deal of my life doing laundry after all. Sorting, inspecting, scrubbing, washing, moving around, folding, putting away, repeat. How could metaphors not arise?

I think sometimes I come off as too deep. I think too deeply. Feel too deeply. Talk about things that others maybe find a little too close, a little too deep to share or talk about. I'm kind of messy sometimes and I don't shy away from messes and well, I think some people it bugs and others it makes uncomfortable and it leaves me holding back a lot of the time. Not wanting to cross a line I'm not very good at seeing. It's hard in the "making friends" place for me. Maybe not everyone is a struggle-through type? I'm cool with that. But every once in a while I wish I was different. That I didn't find a lesson in the school run, or grocery shop, or the pile of laundry.

Like today when a laundry metaphor smacked me in the face. I just wanted to throw it all in and push a button and have it done. "It" you know? I want "it" done. The messy pile of stuff.

We're doing a cleanse of sorts. The Whole30. It's 30 days of totally clean, paleo eating. No grains. No sugar. No dairy. Just clean protein, loads of yummy veggies, and lots of good fats. It's actually going really well. Several annoying everyday symptoms passing by the wayside. I'm too holistic to expect that cleaning out the toxins in my body isn't going to kick up toxins in my heart, mind and soul though. Or the hearts, minds, and souls of my compadres on this journey--the fellas.

I expected it would happen. A cleanse with several weeks off together. With a first major holiday in a new country. With a visit from family from far away. With homesick boys and heartrending loneliness and loads of new adventures and the culture shock of beginning to get comfortable with location but not yet with culture. It's bound to kick stuff up, and it has. Old, yucky toxic crap that has clearly been making me deeply sick and exhausted. Other less entrenched stuff that has become just a frustrating nuisance. All of it piling up a bit in a big smelly mess. And today, I just want to throw it all in together. Just toss it in, push a button, give it an hour or so, and hope it comes out clean.

Except just like the laundry if I do that some stuff will shrink that needs to stay big. Colors will bleed or fade and won't be as vibrant. Things will be ruined. Things won't get properly cleaned and later on it'll just make for more work and more mess. So I'm trying to be brave and even a tiny bit organized. I'm trying to pluck up the courage and gumption to sort it. Inspect it. Scrub at pre-treat and wash away the toxins, move things around a bit, then put away what needs to be kept and learned and gleaned from the process. Then repeat. And repeat. And repeat some more as long as necessary.

starting from scratch

I'm lonely. I don't know how else to describe this feeling. This emptiness. This sense of longing. It's not without hope or expectation, but still this loneliness is defeating as well. It's hard to be lonely.

Loneliness is a byproduct of a life lived the way we live. It's bound to happen when you move as much as we do--especially international moves where you're dealing with a new culture and not just a new place. We all feel it. Deep in our bones. It makes us a bit frantic sometimes. At least me and Biggest. Biggest and I get frantic. We want to call people and make playdates and we hope no one is mad and we want to invite everyone over all the time and we hope we'll do the right thing and they'll like us and we'll be 'friends.' But I'm not sure either he or I are all that realistic about what this means. "Friends." We try hard to lower our expectations but try as we might we know they're still so high.

Wanderer and I feel it too. A dance of close and yet far away. Only each other to talk to--really TALK to. So we share a lot. But it's difficult to be the others only sounding board. And so we say too much or not enough or the wrong thing and getting it wrong is a much bigger deal. There's no other substitute or surrogate so when we get it wrong then there's NO one to talk to about that and we're far away again. Sometimes we stay far away for while. Meandering and stumbling and blazing through our lives and feeling unsure when to try again. Interject. Reach out. Having only one person as your go-to for community is not very wise. Sex, parenting, friendship, laughter, just the inane talking that sometimes a girl like me needs to do. Only one person should never be expected to absorb all those things. The good news is I try very hard not to make him. The bad news is much of it gets kept inside. Words. Dreams. Thoughts. Questions. Hurts. Fears. Worries. Exultations. And somehow they get dulled inside. And sometimes they get sharper and all I know is that it feels very lonely to carry them around by myself. But I don't have anyone else to share them with yet. So. I feel ever so excruciatingly lonely.

I hate moving. I hate it almost as much as I love it. The exhilaration of a new city, country, continent full of new adventures in direct proportion to the heartache of having to start again from scratch.

Scratch is a funny word for it actually. Like cooking from "scratch." I prefer that. I almost never buy things in boxes or pre made packaging. I prefer to wing it with what I've got. Adding a little of this and a little of that until it's yummy and just right for me and my fam. I guess that's what one does with a new locale as well. But the same hard thing is true of building a life from scratch that applies to a recipe--you can never recreate the same yummy dish twice. And when you have a yummy dish of a life going it sure is hard to leave behind.

Our last two locations were by no means perfect, but they sure were yummy. I'm only four months in here--I've got plenty of time--but damn it if I'm not down in my belly longing for some of the yumminess. I'm gathering ingredients. Some of the basics are in place: a great Farmer's Market for weekly shopping and an identified regular grocery store whose aisles and products I am beginning to shop with ease. Two close fantastic coffee shops. Even a fun boutiquey shopping area for girlish afternoons. I have the house all set up the way I like it and enjoy being here. I haven't found a regular doctor we like yet. I haven't even attempted finding a babysitter. School was set, but it's been so hard I'm not positive we don't need to switch that one out. Plus the most important ingredients of all--we have some people we've hung out with. Perhaps-ish ingredients in the settling-in recipe. We enjoy being with them. They invite us back--which seems to mean they enjoy us too. We do play dates and family dinners and it goes a long, long way towards cutting the loneliness down. Early though. Four months isn't quite long enough to say whether we'll be FRIENDS friends or not.

FRIENDS are the ones who come over when you're sick and take your kiddos somewhere so you can nap and try to get better. Or make you a cup of extra sweet tea and cry in their kitchen with you when your brother-in-law dies or even just when you've had it with your kiddos and need a moment with another adult. FRIENDS plan girls nights and breakfast mornings and remind you and ask you again and then again because they know you're an airhead or at least very distracted with everything going on and they don't get mad or at least they never tell you they are. FRIENDS sit around fires and chat long into the night about all things wrong and right and good and hard in the world and they don't try to fix you, they just let you talk but they do say hard things if you need to hear them or kind things and they MAKE SURE you hear those too. FRIENDS walk in the woods and pick through flea market finds and introduce you to their favorite breakfast place. FRIENDS rescue each others cars from the sea and tents from the wind and hearts from the gutter of despair or depression or just a really bad week. FRIENDS love your kiddos and are fiercely loyal to them and let you be to theirs. FRIENDS are the ones you call on Friday night at the last minute and say "I don't feel like cooking" when what you really mean is that you feel like company and you all order take-away or throw something together--together--and bring wine and chocolate. FRIENDS.

I'm just so lonely. The thing is I have those FRIENDS. Those lovely precious ingredients in such a yummy life, but they're all so damned far away. They're not gone. They're only a phone call or an email or a Skype or FaceTime date away--and I do reach out into the distance for them often and am often comforted. But the thing about a new place, a new neighborhood, city, country, continent is that you have to start over. You must. You have to set out again on a road to making friends into FRIENDS. You need those folks 2 doors away. A short drive away. You have to find someone to cry over a cup of tea with. To walk, and eat, and explore, and laugh, and hang out with. You have to make FRIENDS nearby. It's essential. That process takes time, and energy, and the willingness to be vulnerable and brave and make mistakes.

In fact it's part of the beauty and enormous blessing of moves--that each time your heart swells to take in new places, people, stories, FRIENDS. It's just that the swelling often occurs after the heartbreak of leaving your delicious life behind. You know the new recipe will emerge, but damn if you weren't quite done enjoying the one you left behind.

Australia is...

Thought I might make this a regular list for the blog. Below are some of my observations from our first two months.

AUSTRALIA IS:

Crazy weather--down coats and flip flops, freezing cold temps but no central heat in the houses, bundled up in the morning & steaming hot by noon. 

Laid back! Phrases like, “No dramas!” and “How you going?”

Ocean/beachy fun! After school and weekend activities at the beach, little piles of sand on the floor after sorting the laundry, sand in my sheets, sand in our food, sand everywhere!

It’s buying whole fish at a time because it’s cheaper. (Then leaving the fish market with the  bones & the head for stock. “Madame? Do you want the bones & head for stock?” “Um...yes? Ew. Okay! YES!”)

It’s being woken up by kookaburras laughing in the trees in the back garden. (Because it’s ‘garden’ not ‘yard’ and ‘gardening’ not ‘yard work.’)

It’s pretty darned great so far!

Taronga Zen

It’s quiet and chill at my house. I’m not sure the last time those two words could describe this house--especially with all four of my men home. 12:37 and I’ve only just had a shower and dressed. Spent the morning rocking in my Giddyup chair, drinking coffee and reading a book about Tuscany. Also a few books about animals and trucks and superheroes with little boys on my lap rocking too.

About 95% of me feels deliciously content and rested and at peace. The other 5% keeps wondering if I ought to take advantage of the pretty day and take the boys surfing. If we’ll miss out by staying at home all day. If they’ll resent it if it rains tomorrow as forecast and we didn’t DO anything today. Even though they are all content and resting and peaceful.

I do this as a mom. I have guilt attacks. Where I worry I’m not doing enough or too much or maybe not the right thing? I hate that stupid guilt monster. Some days though, some days I can quiet the beast and enter into the day and just be. Those days are always so delightful.

Thursday was such a day though it didn’t begin that way. The puppy had barked much, much, much of the night. Oh my. I kind of wanted to kill him. We had a trainer come and we were trying some new things and man a livin' he was struggling. So anyway, I was pooped. Also Littlest was just a stinker that morning. Demanding. Whiney. So very two years old. Then I accidentally opened a blog from one of those 'super moms' suggesting a clothespin game to play with your toddler in the living room that helps them work on the pincer grasp. RAWR! Guilt monster attack! I thought, "OH NO! I haven't been working on that. Was I supposed to? Now he'll have poor control and bad handwriting. Which means he’ll be a poor student and get behind and it will be all my fault. I've failed!" It sent me into a yucky space. Spiraling down into not-so-nice thoughts about myself and my mothering and how he wasn't in preschool and I wasn't doing preschool type things with him and would he be okay, was I wasting the short time I have with him, maybe we should have stayed in the US where he had a lovely preschool, etc. etc. On top of that the bigs just couldn't seem to get their act together for school. I was patient, but it was really irritating. There’s only so many times you can suggest that they get dressed in a serene voice. I had told Littlest I would take him to the zoo and I nearly bailed. In the end though we dropped the bigs off (late) at school and headed to the zoo.

It was so delightful. He had a cupcake and I had a coffee. Cupcakes and coffee always help. I need to paste that note up somewhere for myself. It seriously made a huge difference for my weary, cranky attitude. Then we just wandered.

The Taronga Zoo is amazing. It overlooks the Sydney Harbor--so it has a fantastic view of the Opera House and the Sydney Harbor Bridge. Gorgeous. Also I didn't bring a stroller or the backpack. So we just wandered around at toddler pace. Which was so restful and restorative. Slow but deliberate. Another toddler meditation practice like I’ve written about before.

We went to the seal show. Which I LOVE. Hung out at the chimpanzees for a while. At one point he found a seed pod. A big one. He calls them 'shaka-shakas.' He loves them. If we were home we’d be collecting the US version from the yard at the top of Columbine Street on our way to Sandburg Elementary every morning. He shook it and danced and sang. Which was stinking adorable. Then he just plopped down right in the middle of one of the main thoroughfares and started pulling it all apart. At first I suggested we move and take it somewhere else. I was sort of embarrassed and not in the mood to beg him or negotiate with his two-ness. Then I thought, "you know what, why bother?" So I plopped down with him. Waited as he pulled apart all 5 pods one at a time. Unwrapped each of the 40 some seeds from their fuzzy-wierd shells and handed them to me one at a time. Right in the middle of everyone's way. It was so great. I nearly cried with the simplicity of it. The beautiful relaxing reality of just sitting anywhere we could find and doing ONE thing until we were done. Together. In the sunshine.

About 10 minutes later we were walking down a hill and he dropped his sippy cup. He realized that it would roll down hill and he just kept picking it up and rolling it over and over. Then he started to kick it. "Play soccer, Mama!" Again I was tempted to tell him no and worried about if it was a suitable area and about how filthy his cup was getting and would it break? Stuff like that. Then I just thought, "you know what, this isn't a big deal either!" So we played soccer. He just giggled and laughed and had the BEST time. Anyone whose way we were in was chuckling at him and his 'soccer ball' and his adorable laugh.

It was all pretty profound for me. I felt like I learned so much. Like that there is something both magical and meditative about being totally present with another person. Especially when that other person is very different from you--i.e. a toddler. Just to see the world at his pace. Through his eyes. Letting him take the lead--something I don't do very often. It was...well, magical! I also felt like I was able to be present with myself in those moments. Really honoring his personhood but also my own. It felt wonderful to sit on the warm concrete in the sun. To watch each seed come free of it's outer and inner case. I enjoyed that immensely and not just because he did. I also noticed that no one seemed particularly bothered that we were in the way. We broke some "rules" and weren’t particularly polite and it wasn't that big of deal. Then it occurred to me later, ha! We worked on the pincer grasp, vocabulary, science, physics, and a bunch of other preschoolish stuff! All just by being together!

It felt like such a peaceful, kind, precious way for God to say to me, "I love you. You're who I pick for these boys. I love YOU for just being YOU. Thanks for taking such good care of them. Thanks for taking good care of you."

Phoning it In

Phone it in. As in Jillian Michaels pointing her finger through the TV screen at my working-out ass and saying, "Do NOT phone this in!"

Or there's "phone a friend." As in Regis Philbin suggesting to the next 'Who Wants to be a Millionaire' that you phone your designated friend if you just can't figure out the answer to the question that might make you a million dollars richer.

I'm more fond of the latter. There are just sometimes you must phone a friend. Tonight I picked my friend, Kelly. Well, actually Wanderer phoned Kelly. On my behalf. I don't know what he said to her, but all of the sudden he handed me the phone with her on the other end. After just a few minutes my sad, discouraged self quit sitting with glazed-over eyes staring at the dining room wall and started laughing, listening, gabbing, and--as she would say--setting the world to rights. Well, my world and Kelly's anyway.

It wasn't long enough. It wasn't face-to-face. She was an awfully long way away in England. There wasn't a strong cup of tea or a tall glass of wine involved. But it was my friend. Who gets me. Who I get. There's just something about that, isn't there?

My mumsie FaceTimed me from the US today. Must have been late, late at night her time. She'd got my message though. She'd read my blog about what in the world to do about my sweet, sad Biggest boy. So we talked. She told her own story of similar struggles with me and my siblings. She made a few really helpful suggestions. We talked and laughed a bit and she admitted she had no idea how to set mine or Biggest's world to rights but she loved me, she was available, and she was real sorry it was so hard. She gets me. That's why she called. She knew I needed to phone a mama.

My silly cell phone doesn't work at my house. We're having trouble getting the Aussie cell phone companies to give me a phone that's not a top-up so we're having trouble remedying the poor-phone problem. But tonight Wanderer and I Skyped over the 3G network while he rode home in a cab from the Sydney airport. He sounded a wee-bit like a robot. Littlest kept asking him, "What you in, Daddy?" Not understanding why on earth you'd have a conversation through the computer if it wasn't video-enabled. Still we talked. He made me laugh and asked about everyone's day and let me know how much he loved me.

Biggest asked me a few weeks ago when I got my first cell phone. "Hmmmm..." I answered. "I think I was about 23?" He was incensed. "WHAT?!?! Your parent's didn't let you have one in high school?!?!" "B, they didn't have them when I was in high school," I told him. "Whoa Mom, I didn't realize you were THAT old!"

In 1996, I spent about a year in Kiev, Ukraine. The internet was a tiny baby. You could email, but not everyone had an account and getting online was patchy--especially from the Ukrainian end. Making a long-distance call involved a trip to the post office to pay for the time, then a call from a land-line to an operator to connect you, then finally the placed call which must be kept within the time limit purchased and often included interruptions of various other conversations over the same line. Still we were amazed about how much modern conveniences had changed the process of keeping in touch. That in spite of the fact that all minute-purchasing, connecting, etc. had to be meticulously practiced in Russian ahead of time or else facilitated by a Ukrainian friend as none of it could be done in English. Still we felt quite well-connected given the enormous distance between us.

I am living now in a completely different hemisphere than my family or any of my friends. I almost always speak to them in a different day--most often we talk in their evening while I have already experienced part of the next morning. Still we talk while walking or driving (hands free of course) or doing dishes. Anytime, any place over our cell phones. We see each other over phones, computers, and iPads. Showing each other our houses, our children's newest tricks, our new puppies, our tears and laughter. We connect. We phone it in. We phone a friend.

I'm enormously grateful for technology in this moment, but not nearly as grateful as the precious friends and family it allows me to connect to.

What's a mama to do?

Drop toddler boy off in the morning at Parent's Day Out. Stand outside door listening to boy sob and sob. Hear from teacher at end of the day that he "only cried until lunch time." Continue to take him.

Try out two days a week the next year. Watch him hold his ears along the sides of the room rocking back and forth because the other children are too loud or too naughty. Worry. Learn he needs to eat gluten-free and dairy-free. Notice the difficulty this makes with school snacks, playdates, etc., but also notice how much calmer he becomes over time. How much easier it is for him to embrace the activities and relationships with the teacher and other kiddos.

Third year. Two days a week again. More "school-like" situation. He loves his teacher and she loves him. They both eat gluten-free and sometimes she brings him special snacks. He flourishes.

Fourth year. Move to England. Enroll him in local school. He skips kindergarten and its "learn to do school and play a lot" mentality and moves right into full-day, full-on school because of his age and the way they do school there. Boy cries again every day when I drop him off. Boy cries so hard his teachers send him home with his brother at lunchtime because otherwise he cries all afternoon long. Everyone is patient, but this doesn't get much better. Even after a few months. The afternoon teacher yells at the kids a lot. Never at him directly--he is the epitome of the 'good kid,' but it doesn't matter. The yelling sends him to tears even after he learns to be away from home all day. He loves to learn, makes friends, and enjoys his morning teacher. Mostly though he's miserable. So we take him out at Christmas.

We teach he and his brother at home for a year and a half. This is a delightful time of exploring things he's really interested in. Teaching him to read. Loving our math curriculum. We go to lots of castles. Visit tons of museums. Have a wonderful time. But...boy is lonely. We welcome another baby into the family so mama is busy. Boy asks to please try school again. We acquiesce.

Boy begins school at tiny local village school. He struggles a bit, but his main teacher is lovely and he soon makes lots of friends. The Wednesday teacher upsets him so much we go to talk to the principle about it. Later finding out we are one of the first parents to report her bullying, name-calling, and belittling behavior even though it has happened before. We are shocked by this. I want to call it quits. We hang in though. The principle confirms the teacher's behavior with other students, the teacher is suspended, and the boy learns that standing up for the underdog (he wasn't the one being bullied by said teacher) is important and can bring about change.

We move after his first year at this school. Boy is utterly heartbroken. He pines for his friends, his teacher, and his school and never quite recovers for over a year.

We enroll him in the local neighborhood school in our new town. It's bigger, but has an art, science, music, P.E., and computer specialist. I am stoked about these things. Surely they make for the best sort of education. Boy is less than thrilled. He struggles to make friends. A group of girls totally stress him out with their chasing, song-singing style of crushing on him. He doesn't bond with his teacher. He has hours worth of homework. It gets so bad that he cries every morning and holds onto my clothes begging and pleading not to have to go to school.

I sit down with the teacher and the principle. Asking how we can help him solve his predicament. He meets with the girls--it goes really well. He meets with his teachers--gains a better understanding of the homework and relaxes into the school year. This takes almost until Christmas. I look at other schools. Should we change? What is the solution?

We leave him at the school. He flourishes academically. They enroll him in the gifted and talented program and test scores show what we often suspected--he is beyond his years in reading and math abilities. He does make friends, but never good friends. His main friend treats him poorly and his brother worse which upsets boy. I don't know how to help with this. It's very difficult to watch.

We make him do swim team at the local pool and finally he is making neighborhood friends. He seems really happy. Then we move. Again.

This time he heads to an even larger school. In yet another country. Boy makes friends right away. Even going on a playdate within the first three weeks. He loves the kids. He's stoked about his friends. Relief. But...the reports of the teaching style worries his dad and I. Calling children "babies" when they misbehave. Principles belittling from the front. Constantly communicating their disappointment and what an "embarrassment" the kids are. We worry about the academics as well. Granted, it's the last three weeks of term, but there is no homework at all, they watch a few movies, and the lessons are deemed boring and "really, really easy."

Mama worries. She worries about his future. Welcoming the sage advice from her mother that she too worried about each school change, move, teacher and friend situation. Worrying at each turn that my future hung in the balance. Yet I turned out okay.

Mama still worries though. About the teaching. About her smart boy not being challenged enough. About what it communicates to a child when adults speak that way to them or to those around them. About what it communicates to them when their parent knows it is happening and doesn't stand up for them. About what in the heck one does instead? Is this the real world full of mean people and he needs my love and support as he learns to navigate it now? Or does he need to be protected from it. Is my role to stand in the gap and say, "no way!"

Academically what do we do? How do you find an education that meets the individual academic needs of such a child? One who just sits in a different place learning-wise than his peers?

Mama struggles. That's what she does. She worries and fidgets and talks it through with his daddy and prays and tries to listen to deep Answers. She tries to see the pattern. Of struggle and triumph. Of his resistance to change and of his ultimate resilience as he muscles through. She tries to remember the remarkable experiences of education outside of any classroom. The global citizen she is raising. The boy whose love of culture and adventure flourishes through his expatriate experiences.

Mama practices the excruciating process of letting go. Knowing ultimately that the boy does not belong to her. That she was chosen as his mother and his guide for a short time. That she can only offer her journey, her heart, and her own story. Doing the very best she can. Trying to take a long view. Trying to be as courageous as she urges him to be.

She listens to his tears as Spring Break ends and he begs not to have to go back to school. "I love the kids, Mom. The teachers though. They're so mean! They never have anything encouraging to say! They've never been mean to me, but they are to the other kids and I HATE that! I can't stand it!" She assures him she's listening. That he can tell her everything. That she's open to thinking through some solutions of how to solve this big problem. She says how sorry she is that it's hard.

Mama drops him off at school on the first day of Term 4. Then she cries.