Have you seen the pandemic-schooling schedule floating around? 

Well. We're in a global pandemic. All over social media are posts encouraging you to make the most of this time your children are off of school. There are many tips on how best to continue schooling while you're isolated at home as well as memes to let off steam about how much teachers should earn, how cooped up everyone's feeling, and how no one's taught to carry the one anymore. (Is this true? I'm too old to have realized this.)

As a parent who's been homeschooling for my children's full schooling years so far, I want to offer my take on how best to homeschool right now for those of you thrown into schooling at home. Don't worry, I'll be gentle. Seriously. Because:

1. This is not homeschooling. If your kids are usually in school full time, what you're doing right now is not any form of regular homeschooling, which is intentional and planned and much less panicky on the whole. What you're doing is crisis schooling. It's stress schooling. It's not vacation, and it's not not vacation. It's weird, and you're distracted and anxious, and your kids might be, too. This isn't normal even for homeschooling families because all our classes, co-ops, excursions, and social interactions are canceled. All children are missing their friends and routines and stimulation, whether they're already used to homeschooling or not. You're missing yours. Maybe you're still working full time in an essential (read: stressful) job. Maybe you're trying to figure out working from home. Maybe you're out of work and worrying about how to pay the next bills to come due. Maybe you or loved ones are sick or recovering. Maybe you or your kids have disabilities or other special needs that make it hard to miss out on the services that make your days more manageable.
   
   I feel you. But only figuratively and from a socially mandated distance.
   
   Whatever you do right now with school, it's fine. It's really, really fine. You don't even have to Make Every Moment Special™, which is its own form of unnecessary pressure. Kids can be bored. Kids can use screens. Kids can play the day away. Kids can fall behind in schoolwork. If your school has gone virtual and is laying on the pressure, you have the right to ask for dispensation and excused absences right now. Because:
   
   

I've been finding myself sharing posts on my Facebook page about how big kids are sweethearts, too. About how we often attribute malice or disinterest to the gangly tweens and teens with the earbuds in and the cool scowl on their faces, and we don't look further to see the tender, thoughtful souls beneath.

Living with a sweetheart of a 12-year-old who's now wearing men's shoes and is about to outgrow his aunt by height, I know firsthand that appearances can be deceiving and that the warmest hearts can beat beneath the pulled-up hoodies of adolescence.

Leading up to Christmas Eve, Mikko had been making jokes about staying up all night to ambush Santa. He thinks Danny Gonzalez's take on the movie The Santa Clause is hilarious, and he bought the single of Danny's song where he states his intention of murdering Santa so he can take over.

I might as well have put it on my calendar. I turned 40 and immediately fell into a funk about who I was and how little I'd accomplished with my life. Maybe it was the contemplation of (unattended) school reunions when I could see on Facebook that former classmates were now doctors, lawyers, nurses, professors, scientists, and successful business owners. Maybe it was watching blogging disintegrate after I'd poured more than a decade of myself into it. Maybe it was all those unfinished and unpublished manuscripts hidden but not forgotten across various hard drives. Maybe it was that my husband had slowly, as we added each new child to our family, taken over more and more of our mom-and-pop business to where it was mostly pop.

I started assessing who I was and what I had done with my four decades on this earth. I saw a lot of titles that were currently in the past — student, blogger, musician, writer, business owner, leader, friend — and not much to speak of from the present: mother, wife, homeschool parent. Mother is not an exclusive title. There's no glory there, particularly if you feel like you're not doing much special and are average at best. Wife is easy when you're married to Sam, believe me. I didn't feel like I was pulling my weight there. And I'm sure everyone homeschools more assiduously than I do. We are at heart lackadaisical. Throw in some learning disabilities we've been navigating, and it's prime territory for fretting I'm not doing enough or the right things.

This makes me laugh.



I'm on the right in each collage,
and Karsten is on the left.

Before I had my first child 12 years ago, I worried about how I would balance my need for quiet alone time with the care of a baby. I have my skepticism toward those personality tests that purport to tell you who you are for all time, but I will say that every time I've taken one, the slider is always the full way over toward introversion. There are few people I feel wholly comfortable around, people I can sit in a room with and feel my batteries recharging rather than draining. By the time I had Mikko, I was down to one: my husband. How would a child fit into this system?

As it turns out, things were fine — for a while. Babies don't require a lot of back-and-forth. You can still have your thoughts while cooing their direction, nursing in long moments of stillness, changing diapers and giving baths.

It's more once they talk that you have to weigh how your conversational styles mesh. Do they enjoy long pauses? What toddler or preschooler does? Do they need time away from YOU? Very few little kids would voluntarily choose so.

In honor of Father's Day, here is a collection of 8 children's books that portray gentle fathers for dads to read with their kids.



Oh, Oh, Baby Boy! by Janine Macbeth — From birth into his father's arms through becoming a father himself, a boy experiences the nurturing and hands-on care that will guide him his whole life.



Guess How Much I Love You, by Sam McBratney & Anita Jeram — Little Nutbrown Hare learns he can never outlove Big Nutbrown Hare, who loves him to the moon … and back.



Daddy Hugs, by Karen Katz — Count along with the hugs daddies can give, from "I gotcha now" hide-and-seek hugs to "Don't be afraid of the dark" hugs.

I have watched my share of videos of tiny house conversions, to the point where YouTube now shows me more as recommendations. I say, Sure, YouTube, ok, just one more. And the cycle continues.

I don't live in a cool tiny home, just a normal small apartment. But I find it inspiring to see how people use a little space and still live big.

Except, that is, when a family is growing.

Don't get me wrong — I love seeing families with little children navigating small spaces. As a family of five living in under 960 square feet (capacious by tiny house standards, I admit), you'd think that would be right in my wheelhouse, and you're right.

However, it's primarily these families that make me yell at my computer screen.

Because they don't know a simple undeniable truth. Ready? Brace yourselves.

BABIES GET BIGGER.

You're the one who knows the exact knee-bend bounce for soothing a crying baby.

You're the one who starts bouncing instinctively as soon as you hear a crying baby in earshot.

You've been taking prenatal horse pills for years, to be on the safe side.

You've been wearing nursing bras just as long.

You're the finder of lost shoes, lost toys, the jacket that never made its way into the closet, the remote in the couch cushions, the stuffie under the couch, the sippy cup under the sink.

You're the one who knows what condiments each kid likes with each food, and who gets them out without asking or being asked.

You could change a diaper with your eyes closed but know not to.

Karsten getting the mail with Papa

We recently visited my parents in Massachusetts, and I surprised myself with the desire I felt to stay.

We moved to Seattle sixteen years ago. (Could that be right? Surely not. But math doesn't lie even if my memory of years passing does.)

Sam and I came off childhoods of regular motion, both of us moved from place to place at the whims of our fathers' employers. We thought we'd stay mobile as adults, but we hit the northwest coast and just felt instantly at home.

But I've struggled, particularly since having children, with the worry that we've chosen wrong, because our families are so far away, his in Michigan and mine near Boston. As our children and our parents react to time in the usual way by getting progressively older, I feel regret and the fear of all our time together slipping away with just these occasional visits, the empty spaces filled with Facebook photo uploads and texted jokes and messages.

When my firstborn was younger, I was a more defensive mother, and, in turn, my mother was more apt to offer advice and correction that caused me to chafe. We've both mellowed into our roles since then. She doesn't offer much direction or criticism anymore, and I don't think I'm always right.

So what was inconceivable several years ago — the thought of living near them peaceably in a way that didn't send our blood pressure jointly skyrocketing — is now a pleasant daydream. Living down the street from or across town or even in the same house as Nana and Papa. Just think of the free babysitting, the grandparent–grandkid cuddle times, the evenings we adults could while away playing euchre. And did I mention the free babysitting?

My mom keeps offering to build a mother-in-law addition on to their house. She points out cute real estate offerings near them. (The prices are just as uncute as here, but that's neither here nor there in daydream land.)

I keep smiling weakly and saying, Oh, I wish.

I wish.

Sam and I have worked from home throughout our marriage: first telecommuting, and then owning our own online business of DVD sales. I wrote out our story in Working from home, Part 1 and Working from home, Part 2, if you want the background.

As we approached starting a family, we realized we wanted to continue to prioritize working together, but we knew it would take some sacrifices and shuffling to make working from home jibe with parenting small children.

Here are the pros and cons so far as we coparent and homeschool a ten-year-old, six-year-old, and two-year-old while running a family business for our income. This is from our experience and might not reflect your own if you already run a business or choose to begin one, but I hope it gives you some perspective on what it can be like.

Our Marriage

We started working from home by accident, but once we got going, we loved it. We had nine years together as a married couple before Mikko came along (well, he beat our anniversary by one day), and that was nine years of seeing each other nearly all day, every day. When we tell some people that, they groan or shudder, but we still really like the person we married! Now that we have kids and live in a(n increasingly) small(er) space, we've made the choice to separate more during the day so one or the other of us can have dedicated work time. We also rented a small and inexpensive work loft for storage and office space. So Sam and I don't see each other quite as much as before — but I'm guessing a whole lot more than most couples where one or both partners work outside the home. I totally understand why other couples would choose the work they do and know that not being together as much is a necessary evil in those cases, but I really do enjoy seeing Sam as much as possible and think it's helped keep our partnership strong.

Coparenting

When we were thinking of having kids, Sam and I knew we each wanted two things: to continue pursuing income and our passions, and to raise our kids. Having a family business has allowed us to divide those goals so we each get a share of both of them. We purposely chose this business in particular (after trying and discarding several others over the years) because it gave us the most income for the least amount of stress, leaving us time to share the parenting.

Celebrating 10 years with Mikko, my firstborn.



He's the same age as my blog,
since my journey as a parent started with him
and inspired me to write about the
new road we were on together.

Looking back is always bittersweet,
seeing all the adorable stages gone in a blink,
but I love all the years we've had with him so far,
and enjoy and appreciate
the unique, determined, compassionate person he is.

We look forward to many more.

Happy birthday to Mikko.

I have three boys with long hair, and one in particular who favors bright colors and sparkles, so I have something to say about our habit to gender people.

When we go out, it seems like everyone we interact with has to say something to make it clear they have interpreted these children as girls — whether it's a cashier offering a sticker as "one for you and one for your sister" or a waiter calling them "sweetie" (which I wouldn't have even caught but that sets off Mikko's spider senses) or a stranger outright saying, "What pretty young girls you are!"

Note a few things upfront:

(a) These are not mean or rude people. They're interacting with my children and doing so in a pleasant, friendly manner. I appreciate that a lot.

(b) There is nothing wrong with being a girl. Or a boy. Or a person born as a boy who identifies partially or wholly as a girl, and vice versa. There is nothing wrong with being gender fluid.

(c) This is probably the biggest one: I'm not here calling out individuals for being problematic. Heaven knows such individuals exist, but most of our interactions are with well-meaning folks. And I know that I am one of them! I'm sure I do this type of thing as well when I awkwardly try to interact with a stranger's kid. I'm more thinking of our culture as a whole and questioning why we feel the need so strongly to gender-identify people in general and children in particular.

It seems obvious to me that
all fathers should be as wonderful
as my kids' father.



Thank you for parenting and loving our kids, Sam.



We are so very blessed.

The day I am writing this, I am at Seattle Center, the campus where the iconic Space Needle stands, enjoying the filtered shade on a bench on a 75-degree May afternoon. Pink blossoms from the spring-sprung trees are dropping softly down on my arms and shoulders. I've spent two hours working on my latest novel, and an hour wandering the well-groomed grounds, admiring the works of art strewn generously throughout and smiling at the sight of so many other people enjoying the beautiful, illusory weather while it lasts.

I am alone, kidless for this brief period of hours. I am free and thrilled and rested and content.

And also miserably guilt-ridden.

Do fathers feel this way, or is it a culturally or biologically instilled mandate that mothers experience guilt at enjoying time away from their children?

Last night I was breaking down in tears from stress. Alrik had a wonderful opportunity (with scholarship!) to attend a homeschool drama class downtown for the spring. It's an incredible program, and we couldn't pass it up for our creatively minded kid when the doors opened for us.

But I worried how we would all cope with getting three kids and me up very early and out the door, onto two to three buses for the ride downtown, and then whiling away the time Alrik was in his class before picking him up and doing the bus dance on back.

I've had nightmares about those bus rides. It's currently cheaper enough for us to ride the bus (only Mikko and I pay at the moment) to beat parking. Plus, we can stay longer and go on other adventures after if we desire, and we often do. And it makes sense to bring Karsten and Mikko with me so Sam can work and we can play. We have memberships at the children's museum and science center, and there's a fun playground, and soon the fountain will be spraying, and the three of us have a grand time while Alrik's having his own fun in class.

I love my children's imaginary friends. I recently reread my post on Silly Guy to Mikko, now 9.5 years old, and we were both tickled at the details we'd forgotten as Silly Guy faded from our lives. To that end, I record: Little Sunshine.

Little Sunshine originally was, I believe, an isopod, or roly poly, that Alrik spotted one day as we walked along the beach a couple years back. Alrik already had established a habit of naming tiny critters we passed, often ants, and telling me their given monikers were things like Rainbow and Cutie. He's never seen the movie with a related title, so I'm assuming Little Sunshine is just something else his brain came up with.

We watched the real-life Little Sunshine crawl along the sidewalk and then disappear down a sewer grate. Isopods, I've learned, are crustaceans and need damp environments to breathe through their gills. In case you were interested. Your call.

But Little Sunshine's disappearance was not his departure from our lives. Oh, no. Alrik, then about age 3, kept talking to him as we continued our walk, and I was obliged to keep up Little Sunshine's end of the conversation.