April in Lockdown

For the first time in my 38 years, I stayed within one property for the entire month of April.  That is astounding, and someday I'll look back and marvel at the strangeness of that fact.  My daily pictures consist of robins and roses.  My daily acts were cooking many meals.  My daily desire was to take delight and do good work within the limits of these stone walls.  There was laughter, tears, overwhelm, and thankfulness this month, and I've never been more grateful for a daily record that reminds me of all God's goodness to us in the past 30 days.

"I don't know if you know that sort of feeling

you get on these days round about the end of

April and the beginning of May, when the sky's

a light blue, with cotton-wool clouds, and there's

a bit of a breeze blowing from the west?  Kind of

uplifted feeling.  Romantic, if you know what I mean."

- The Inimitable Jeeves, P.G. Wodehouse - 

April 1 - Schoolwork in the Garden

April 2 - I clipped some cherry blossoms.

April 3 - My Candle Lighter

April 4 - Snow White Cherry Blossoms

April 5 - Robin in Flight

April 6 - Robin in the Rain (taken by K.J.)

April 7 - Robin in the Cherry Tree 😊

April 8 - Tulip Season

April 9 - Snail Sighting

April 10 - I really enjoyed this sequel.

April 11 - Spiced Easter Biscuits

April 12 - Happy Easter!

April 13 - Beautiful Weeds

April 14 - Homemade Pizza

April 15 - Hanging Out With Friends in a Pandemic

April 16 - 8:54 p.m., Kids in Their P.J.'s Hanging Out My Window

April 17 - There have been lots of snail sightings in the garden.

April 18 - Noreen calls him "the Archer" these days.

April 19 -  Sunday Service

April 20 - A Great Tit?  I am struggling to identify this bird.

April 21 - "How'd You get that shade of green?"

April 22 - When COVID-19 gets you down, I prescribe Wodehouse.

April 23 - A new velvety rose appeared.

April 24 - This little white butterfly had lavender undertones that went so well with the purple flower.

April 25 - Long-distance Literary Society is such a bright spot!

April 26 - We'll definitely finish the series before the lockdown ends!

April 27 - The First White Rose

April 28 - We can't go anywhere, but God has given us abundant roses.

April 29 - The Promise of More to Come

April 30 - A Different Perspective

Confined Like an Anglican Washed Ashore

Literature and history have many examples of people living in confinement, and I was reminded of a quote from a recent favorite that is a perfect confinement novel.  A Gentleman in Moscow by Amor Towles tells the story of a Russian count sentenced to confinement in a hotel by a Bolshevik tribunal.  Instead of remaining a guest there, he becomes a prisoner; if he leaves he'll be shot.  I loved the Count's thoughts shortly after his sentencing.

“Having acknowledged that a man must master his circumstances or otherwise be mastered by them, the Count thought it worth considering how one was most likely to achieve this aim when one had been sentenced to a life of confinement.

For Edmond Dantès in the Château d’If, it was thoughts of revenge that kept him clear minded.  Unjustly imprisoned, he sustained himself by plotting the systematic undoing of his personal agents of villainy.  For Cervantes, enslaved by pirates in Algiers, it was the promise of pages as yet unwritten that spurred him on.  While for Napoleon on Elba, strolling among chickens, fending off flies, and sidestepping puddles of mud, it was visions of a triumphal return to Paris that galvanized his will to persevere.

            
But the Count hadn’t the temperament for revenge; he hadn’t the imagination for epics; and he certainly hadn’t the fanciful ego to dream of empires restored.  No.  His model for mastering his circumstances would be a different sort of captive altogether:  an Anglican washed ashore.  Like Robinson Crusoe stranded on the Isle of Despair, the Count would maintain his resolve by committing to the business of practicalities.  Having dispensed with dreams of quick discovery, the world’s Crusoes seek shelter and a source of fresh water; they teach themselves to make fire from flint; they study their island’s topography, its climate, its flora and fauna, all the while keeping their eyes trained for sails on the horizon and footprints in the sand.” 

So how are you enduring your confinement?  Plotting revenge, planning future work and future triumphs, or like an Anglican washed ashore?  

New Family Rhythms

This is such an unprecedented time in history we're all experiencing right now.  For some it's been a nightmare; for some it's been a sweet time of family renewal.  I read such heartbreaking stories online, and I also read the most uplifting stories of people outdoing one another in doing good things. I know you all do, too; I don't need to tell you what this time is like. 

My family was already a homeschooling, work-from-home family when the French confinement began, but we've still adopted a few new rhythms that I know will forever mark this time in our memories, and I want to record them here.

Family Read Alouds at Night

Somewhere along the way the kids moved into reading on their own in bed before going to sleep, and I was no longer reading with them at bedtime.  I've heard it said you don't realize the last time you pick up your child in your arms, and it must be similar with bedtime stories.  When was the last time I snuggled in bed with each of my kids to read to them?  

Nostalgic rumination aside, Ella suggested a family read-aloud of The Chronicles of Narnia for this lock-down period, and I'm so glad she did!  It's worked out brilliantly.  The books are short enough to read aloud in a week or less usually, so it's a series that will easily be completed, and while we've each had our own separate experiences with Aslan and Narnia, it's delightful to go on this journey together.  Every night around 8 p.m. we gather in the living room for about 45 minutes of reading.  When normal life eventually resumes, I know I will miss the every-nightness of this event.

Walking in the Garden

Before the lock-down when I wanted to go for a walk I always laced up my shoes and either walked to the local park or around our town on the sidewalks.  But since we've been obliged to fill out a form and carry our ID with us when we go out for exercise, I've only left the little walled garden where we live once.  The pacing back and forth began one day with me wondering how far I could manage to walk in the garden keeping track of my mileage on my Fitbit, and it turned into a habit.  I was inspired by a friend in church who is keeping up with her 10,000 steps a day pacing in her tiny Paris apartment.  Several times a day I'm now out in the garden walking back and forth across the longest part, wearing a path in the grass until my Fitbit buzzes and fireworks shoot across the screen.  It's also become a time of day for K.J. and I to talk and share the day's news without the kids listening in on the conversation.  We've been having afternoon dates pacing in the garden, and it makes the steps go by faster.

Almost Daily Piano Practice for Ella

Noreen has a beautiful piano, and Ella's been using this time to teach herself how to play.  Staying home places limitations on what we can do, and that's not a completely bad thing.  She has access to a lot of Easy Piano arrangements through my Scribd subscription; the key to her devoting herself to practice has been learning songs she actually likes.  These days if you're in the garden and Noreen's windows are open you will hear Han and Leia's Theme, As Time Goes By, themes from La La Land and Pirates of the Caribbean.  

Sports in the Garden

K.J. has told a lot of people he feels like he almost missed out on the time-honored tradition of regularly throwing a football with James in the backyard.  This slowing down of time has given space for soccer drills, throwing the football, and James is also regularly out with a bow and arrow purchased at a castle in Wales.  Now that the weather is warming up, the big water guns we brought back from the U.S. last summer are making a re-appearance.  

In addition to more outdoor play, James has regular Minecraft/FaceTime calls with friends now.  He takes possession of my phone and computer, and the voices of boys telling each other to kill things, build things, and teleport can be heard all through the house because little boys just talk loudly.

Those are a few of our new family rhythms.  What about you?  Are you into puzzles now, watching through a TV series or re-reading favorite books?  Shout-out to another friend in Paris who moved her furniture back against the walls and created a Four Square court in her apartment so her kids could burn some energy.  These are the stories we'll all be telling for the rest of our lives.

Three Things to Remember for the Homeschool Beginner

So many parents are hearing the news that this unexpected homeschooling thing might last the remainder of the school year, and I can only imagine the stress that is causing.  

Here are two thoughts that helped me feel better when I first began homeschooling.  The third thing is just a salute to the craziness that can ensue when you're trying to teach multiple children different subjects simultaneously.

1.  Remember learning at home doesn't have to look exactly like learning in a school classroom.

If you grew up going to public or private school it's natural to begin by trying to organize everything at home to mimic a classroom experience with set times, school desks, etc.  None of that is bad, but it always helped me to remember home is not the same environment as a classroom with 15 other children in it.  Your routine and schedule will look different than the routine and schedule at school, and it will look different from the routine and schedule of other families right now.  That's okay.  Don't feel badly about that.  

2.  When you have interruptions in your "school day," remember that there are interruptions at school, too!

You might be interrupted by a younger child or the dog or a work e-mail or a phone call, and it can feel like it takes longer than it ought to finish the school day.  Remember that a traditional school day includes kids needing bathroom breaks, misbehaving children, getting everybody lined up for P.E. or lunch, school assemblies, etc.  So yes, assignments can sometimes be done quickly if there are no interruptions, but sometimes the school day at home will have just as many moving parts as a traditional school day.  That's okay, too.  

3.  You'll probably feel a little crazy switching gears constantly in helping multiple children with different assignments.  

I have nothing but solidarity to offer here, especially if you're helping with work assigned from your child's school.  If you're designing your own program, I recommend consolidating all you can so you don't always feel like someone's waiting on you.  In the past two years I've tried consolidating History, Read-Alouds, Science, and Grammar.  Grammar rules stay the same, but you might require more involved writing from an older child.  

Ultimately, every home is different, all parents are different, kids are different, so home education is going to look different in every home.  There's a lot of freedom in that.  I know you're doing a great job.

April Armchair Traveling

Yesterday I spent some time looking at pictures from April 2015 for an Instagram account I started a few years ago.  We've been able to visit so many beautiful places in the past 5 1/2 years, and I liked the idea of having a place to catalog some of those lovely landscapes and details.  Early on I fell into the habit of only posting pictures from the same month of previous years.  I love following the movement of the seasons in pictures.

The first April day I re-visited was a Friday when I think we had a church meeting wrapping up our Easter Holiday Bible Club in North Yorkshire.  K.J. drove with the kids while I took my camera and walked on a public footpath behind the kids' school because I'd caught a glimpse of lambs earlier in the day.  This was our first spring in North Yorkshire, and I was terrified I'd somehow miss lambing season.  The thing about seasons is that they come once a year, and then they're gone.  You have to pay attention in the moment.  I'm happy to report I didn't miss out on frolicking lambs in 2015.

In addition to photographing lambs, I grew slightly obsessed with bees going about their business (beez-iness, bizzzz-iness?) in the spring and summer.  England's moderate climate, and the English genius about gardening means flowers that don't prematurely wither away.  They last so much longer than in Alabama.  I spent a lot of time that first summer watching the bees in the lavender outside my kitchen window while I washed dishes.  

I got this lucky shot experimenting with the macro function on one of my lenses at Newby Hall.  It still brings me a lot of joy.  I also got a lot of joy watching these lambs play follow the leader that day.

Ella took ballet lessons in a small village nearby, and while I usually went back home while she had her lesson, one April day I took a walk instead, exploring a public footpath.  I was captivated to live in a place that had ridings.

But of course the most magical April night of all was when our entire family got to be present for the birth of twin lambs at a local farm. I was over the moon that night.

That seems like a good stopping place for now.  Thanks for coming armchair traveling with me.  It's fun to re-live past Aprils and to look forward to the day we can leave our houses and do some exploring once more.