Rather unexpectedly, I am now proudly wearing the battle-worn badge of homeschooling momma.

After our month away in January, the boys lost their spots at their public elementary school. We were faced with a choice: an overflow school for the last four months of the year or I could homeschool them. I decided to suck it up and do it. How hard could it be to teach first grade? (Sarcasm, people. That is sarcasm).

For the sake of remembering this wild season of life, let’s review the highs and lows of homeschooling first graders for the past two months with zero curriculum pre-planning, or, let’s be honest here, the faintest clue of what I am doing.

The obvious takeaway: This is Hard. 

Mornings are slow, which I adore, yet, they tend to be flanked with whining, groaning, and debating the need to do anything involving a pen, workbook or, goodness forbid, the empty-paged journal. {The horror!}

I begin patiently, resolved to approach the day with gentle words and a calm demeanor.

I pour my coffee.

Resolute, I encourage my offspring to open their journals. In a sweet Mother Teresa-esque voice, I gently remind my pupils of the importance of proper sentence structure. “Poop” may inspire laughter from your brother, however, it is not a complete sentence.

I pour more coffee.

And, thus, our daily rhythm ensues. Groans and dramatic full body flails, followed closely by excitement over a new skill mastered (!), then, more complaints and utter despair when confronted with yet another subject matter – it appears thirty minutes should suffice for a full day of learning.

I pour more coffee.

In the midst of all of the coffee and the complaints and the surprisingly sweet moments interwoven throughout the morning, I’m also wiping my newly potty-trained toddler’s bum {isn’t bum the cutest word? Note to self: use it more often}, washing dishes {apparently sitting at the kitchen table produces ravenous little people all.morning.long}, never-ending piles of laundry and mopping up the dog water spills and all the things.

Unavoidably, I am no longer speaking in a Mother Teresa-esque tone by the end of the day.

The other obvious takeaway: I cannot do it all. 

Alas, the balls I am attempting to precariously balance in the air are dropping left and right. Rapidly. I am behind on returning phone calls, paying bills, responding to emails, writing deadlines, photo organization {my favorite photo album printer – MyPublisher – is closing it’s doors at the beginning of May and I have two years worth of photo books to organize, upload and print. The clock is ticking, people}, event planning {we had to cancel an event tonight, in fact. Not actually my fault but I still feel like I let a whole slew of people down with my inability to manage small details at the moment}.

I’ve had a cathartic ugly cry and am accepting my limitations.

I don’t like feeling inept.

Yet, I’m leaning into the crazy idea Jesus presented that in my weakness, His strength is magnified. I am trusting that, somehow, He will use my inability, my unpreparedness, my lack for His glory. 

The not-so-obvious takeaway: Lingering is a lost art.

Because we have temporarily stepped off the treadmill and checked ourselves out of the race for a season, we have this glorious opportunity to create whitespace in our days. Unplanned, unhurried, unscheduled minutes and hours set aside simply to linger.

To stoop down and scoop up a handful of freshly sprouted spring flowers. To roam freely outdoors – awakening imaginations and senses gone dormant under academic and time-constrained pressure.

To linger over a new book from the library, saying yes to the enthusiastic request for one more chapter.

To linger after dinner, on a long walk, without the incessant pull to rush back home and complete the bedtime routine in preparation for another early morning.

To indulge the endless stream of  “why”… to pause our schedule for an impromptu shoe-tying lesson… to play games and dump piggy bank contents onto the table for a math lesson…to build forts and plan out April Fool’s tricks {per our plan, Nate hid all of the spoons this morning and CRACKED UP when Dave opened the drawer in search of a cereal spoon}…

In my exhaustion and inaptitude, I’ve been given the chance to step back and evaluate what matters most to me as a mother. If I imagine my grown children in twenty years, sitting around a table with their friends, how do I want them to describe their childhood?

I know I want them to have warm, fond memories of long days outside. I want them to remember dirt under their fingernails and laughter on their lips. I want them to remember the sensation of sunshine on their faces. I want them to remember the affection and responsibility they gleaned from caring for animals. I want them to remember a home with vases full of handpicked wildflowers on every surface and refrigerator doors covered in homemade Picasso’s. I want them to remember a childhood framed with sweet, content moments of lingering…