an E.P.T. failure

We had been married just over a year when I got pregnant with our first. Though we weren’t planning a baby, we sure couldn’t say we were surprised.

First: I had stopped taking the pill. I had to or I was going to kill someone . . . and it wasn’t going to be me. The hormonal state that Ortho-novum kept me in played “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” with my emotions. For example, my husband would walk in the door after 12 hours of playing soldier. I would say, in my sweetest Donna Reed voice, “How was your day?” only to follow it up four minutes later with a Linda-Blair-exorcist-like, “Get Outta My Face!”

We figured even unplanned parenthood had to be better than that.

Second: the husband was an Army Lieutenant stationed at Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was away doing field training. A lot. For long stretches of time. He was gone from Oct. 18 until Nov. 8, left again on Nov. 10 and didn’t return home until the first of December. Hmmm . . . doesn’t take quantum physics to figure out that one.

So, I found myself pregnant. Entirely too young. 4,000 miles away from my mommy. The first of all of our friends to fail the “E.P.T.” test. And more than a little terrified. I felt like Prissy from Gone with the Wind: “Why, I don’t know nothin’ bout birthin’ no babies!” My preference: Schedule a C-section, take some heavy drugs, and hope for the best. Oh, but it’s not that easy for a do-it-yourself junkie. You see, I read. And read. And read. And Alaska is not exactly the kind of place where you are encouraged to follow the crowd. Unless, of course, the crowd is a bunch of earth-mother, hippie-wanna-be, save-the-earth do-gooders. (And I mean that in a good way!) So I found myself reading Mothering Magazine and Ina May Gaskin's “Spiritual Midwifery” and Rahima Baldwin’s “Special Delivery” and all manner of natural, wholistic childbirth propaganda. By the time August 13 rolled around, I was enduring a 32-hour labor at home with a couple of midwives.

Now, the birth itself did not turn out exactly picture-perfect. But I did end up with a beautiful daughter, and a passion for pregnancy and childbirth that can only be described as a part-time obsession. More about that at a later date.

The worst part of my first pregnancy: Not having caffeine
The weirdest craving during my first pregnancy: McDonald’s cheeseburgers (ewww.)
The strangest side-effect of my first pregnancy: Sporadic, but uncontrollable giggling (Again, another story for another time . . . )

twinkle-ding-dong, nerdy eggheads

Homeschool kids general fall into four basic categories:
1) Nerds. (I use this term lovingly, as I know some of these.) Wildly overprotected; “tucked in” tee-shirts; have actual desks and maps and bulletin boards in a schoolroom in their home; willingly, and sometimes annoyingly, initiate lengthy conversations with adults about their recent science experiment involving hydroponically-grown melons.
2) “Twinkle-ding-dongs.” These are the offspring of the leftover hippies. They draw unicorns for biology, play non-competitive games, build all-wooden, multicultural toys, eat a lot of tofu, and write music for wind flutes. (The “Twinkle-ding-dongs” were much more common in Alaska than they are here in the good ol’ South.)
3) Classics. These children are well-behaved; well-versed in home economics and American history; involved in scouts and 4-H clubs; competitive; and for some reason, they are almost always “morning people”.
4) Egg-heads. You know the type: Articulate in three languages; fluent in oboe and violin; can do advanced math on an abacus; can not only spell “flocculent”, but also define the word and give its etymology.

We never did seem to fit into any of these categories. We rarely "tucked in", the car was our school room, my kids thought 4-H was punishment, we never baked anything we could buy at Kirchoff's Bakery, and neither of my kids could spell “flocculent” - though they could easily come up with three creative, off-color uses for the word!

When people asked me why we homeschooled, my answer would vary from year-to-year. Partly because I'm a notorious "do-it-yourselfer". Largely because we just didn’t have time for regular school - we were too busy learning stuff. But primarily because I LOVE hanging out with my kids.

We had a “loose schedule” and followed it loosely as well. Our curriculum was always a hodge-podge of books we found fascinating. Our classroom was wherever we were that day – the den couch, the car, the church building, the park. Our activities ranged from the high-brow Symphony Children’s Choir to very loud guitar and drum lessons, from gymnastics to baseball and volleyball, from community theater to lots of community volunteer work. We had days we just couldn’t face the idea of “school”, so watching “Jeopardy” and and going to Kroger and mowing the yard became current events, economics and P.E. I think we even managed to go swimming and find a way to call it “marine biology”.

We never missed an opportunity to have a meaningful conversation. We talked. A lot. We read. A lot. We played games. A lot. We laughed. A lot. We slept in. Yeah, a lot. And I guess we did okay. Kacey managed to receive several academic scholarships and a 27 on her A.C.T. (not an egghead score, but quite respectable!) She will be a college senior this year and has maintained a 3-point-something GPA while serving as an R.A., small-group leader, Student Government senator, etc. (Kevin exhibits all the signs of being even more intelligent than his sister, but until we can decipher his handwriting, we cannot be certain of this.) My kids are well-rounded, responsible, funny, and far-from-perfect. I am so glad we chose to homeschool. I wouldn’t change a thing.