Fugitives Still Wear Pants

It is always hard to come back to something that you love, but haven't done in awhile.  I feel that way about running and yoga and eating kale (wait did I say love, I meant "I think kale is totally gross, but I live in Portland so I need to act excited about hiding it in smoothies") and writing the run-on sentences that make up this blog.  When I went back to school to finish the degree that I quit in my 20s I basically did nothing but study, write papers and go to labs.  The downside - studying, writing papers (professors don't like parenthetical asides by the way), going to labs and the near-death experience of this blog.  Also, I missed a lot episodes of Vampire Diaries.  Don't judge me.  The upside (other than no longer being a college drop out) - I held a human brain (and various other pickled body parts) in my hands,  learned I was good at using terms like "diaspora", "perpetual dependence" and "conversely", and also I can look really smart while helping my daughter with her cell structures crossword puzzle for her 7th grade bio class.

My long term plan was not just to work hard and earn my super useless degree in Social Science, but rather to work hard and earn my super useless degree along with all the prerequisites to apply for an accelerated graduate degree in nurse midwifery. (Hence the human brain in my hands.)  Anyone who knows me knows that if I don't catch me some babies in this life I will haunt the halls of maternity wards whispering to birthing women to get off their backs already... although I might do that anyway.  My application was due on December 1st.  My application is still in my underwear drawer (it's pretty much the only place I don't lose stuff) ... along with two letters of recommendation and the cancellation notice for the appointment to sit my GRE.  

This decision was mostly made for me one afternoon when my first grader (for the second time in two years) pulled an escape from Alcatraz (aka. the local elementary school) and, like any self respecting fugitive, ran straight home to his Momma.  20 minutes after he and his classmates finished off their nut-free, gluten-free, sugar-free and taste-free lunches there Q. stood at my  front door in all his sweaty faced, heaving chest, dimpled glory.  He apparently ran the mile home from school and just beat the phone call from the trying-really-hard-not-to-panic front office lady, who I am pretty sure lost a crazy competitive, best of 20, rock-paper-scissors death match with the principal to tell me that they had lost my kid.  I explained that he had just arrived home.  She was not even a little impressed with his 1600 meter time.

After many attempts by his very dedicated and talented public school teacher to help him engage in any kind of learning (seriously, she has been great) and countless hours of helping Q. finish tedious worksheets that he didn't finish during class because "they are the worst, most boringest things in the world", my husband and I have decided that there just might be a reason you can't nail jello to a wall, fit a square peg into a round hole, or talk a 7 year into thinking that his walk between classes is the same thing as recess.  It seems so ironic that through all of my sacrifices to stay in school, my son has been straining to flee it, both mind and body. As a result, we have decided to take the proverbial road-less-traveled, a road which for us, ends up at our kitchen table with me and my son learning about the math, reading, grammar and the ocean (his learning topic of choice) in a way that will convince him that education is not punishment and that it is normal for little boys to wiggle and run while also giving him the skills to control the wiggles and the running when necessary.

I have my fingers crossed, one eye closed and am trying to remember to breath deep as we head down a totally new route that we hope will give Q the tools he needs to like learning and like himself at the same time.  It could be a disaster... or it could be his greatest run yet. Ready. Set...