Category: Karen’s columns

Media free day

kroset 1 Comment

Could you live media and device free for one whole day in today’s world? Yesterday my husband, son and I took that on and went media/device free for the whole day.

I had proposed this challenge a couple of days prior to my family as I was curious of how hard we would find this to do as we hadn’t been device free for quite some time. With resistance my family begrudgingly appeased me and were game to the challenge with just one exception: we agreed to not take away my son’s limited daily gaming time as that’s his motivator to do the things he is supposed to do. Like many parents, we use gaming time as a carrot: when expectations aren’t met we take his gaming time away as it’s really the only thing that motivates him. Since this proposed media free day is not a consequence for bad behavior we agreed to let that, and only that, stand. All other use of devices would cease.

Would we find it challenging? We had some predictions. Both my son and I agreed that we thought that my husband would have the hardest time of the 3 of us since it seemed that he is typically on his device more than my son and I for a variety of reasons. We thought my son would have the second hardest time, then myself (other than potentially losing my 410 day streak on Duolingo, I really didn’t care about being phone free for one day.)

Our extended family’s reaction was mixed when we told them on Christmas day what we intended to do the following day. I expected it to be no big deal to our relatives but for some, on both sides, there was concern over how they would reach us if there was an emergency. “Call the police and have them come by our house,” was what we told them.

And so it began…

The first thing that hit me the moment I woke up on our media free day was how many other things my phone represents to me besides just my phone. A clock for instance. I had no idea what time I woke up because the first thing I usually do is grab my phone to check the time, then I check my texts, then any big news headlines. Clock, communication device and news source: 3 things I no longer have to buy separately because they are all incorporated on just one device – my phone. By the end of the day, I had a much broader list of all the things, other then phone, I use my iPhone for:

  • clock
  • texting device
  • news source
  • calendar
  • contact list (phone number directory, address book)
  • social media (Facebook)
  • music player
  • navigation (maps)
  • search engine
  • camera
  • podcasts
  • language learning program (Duolingo)
  • weather source
  • entertainment (YouTube videos)

The things I missed from not using my laptop:

  • Word processor (WordPress blog page)
  • Photo album creator (Shutterfly)

I missed our TV in the evening when we typically watch something together as a family.

As for other things I noticed as our day progressed, I noticed that we had a much richer morning conversation over breakfast that reminded me of conversations that I used to have daily with my family over breakfasts back in the 70’s and 80’s. Discussions and debates over…well anything really. We had nothing else to look at or read to distract us so by default we talked. It was fun.

Going for walks with our dog and doing physical and hands on things during the day was easier to fit into our schedules since without those things there would have been nothing to fill our day. We worked on a big puzzle, my husband played his musical instruments, my son painted his Perry miniatures, we all played with our dog. These things are things we would typically do anyway but certainly just not as much as we did. We also had more of an excuse to go on an excursion and to see something new. We ended up visiting a local museum in town that we had never visited before.

Our predications of who would miss their device the most were wrong. We learned that taking away my son’s phone took away his access to music and podcasts which are apparently much more necessary to him than we realized and was quite eye opening to us as his parents as to how much music helps him to focus (both at home and in school). Because of his ADHD and anxiety, without music or a podcast playing in the background my son’s anxious thoughts took over his brain and were swirling incessantly torturing him. My husband found an old antenna radio in our storage that appeased him for awhile allowing us to continue with our experiment.

Am I glad we did this. Absolutely! It was very eye opening. It was also refreshing to not be tied to any devices. Part of me wishes we could do it more regularly. My husband jokingly asked me if we should do ‘Media Free Mondays?’ I know it would never fly. We rely on our phones now for too many things.

Year of transition

kroset 3 Comments

We are in the midst of a transition year. Having moved last July from one town to the next we are still adjusting to our new lives 9 months in. This of course is not unexpected as we knew it would take awhile for everything to start settling, but man, transition times are hard!

Everyone has their own list of hardships of course. I find that sometimes it can be helpful to read about others’ struggles to help feel less alone as well as to write out my feelings. With that in mind I’ve decided to share mine publicly, not to solicit sympathy but as way of recording and journaling my thoughts. Here are the biggest areas in which my family is currently feeling a transition in no particular order.

  • Managing construction projects to fix up our house.
    If you’ve ever gone through construction you know that it often takes longer than you thought and that unexpected issues come up, as has been the case in fixing up our new house. For instance replacing carpet with hardwood floors led to having to pause completing the flooring due to water damage on our floors under the windows due to water leakage that needed to be addressed immediately. This meant having to order and install new windows on two sides of our house. To put new windows in meant jackhammering out the stucco around our windows, putting the new windows in, re-stuccoing around the new windows, and then eventually painting the exterior of the house. Since flooring was top on our list of things to do, everything else was pushed back until the windows were properly installed. So currently all painting projects (interior and exterior) and other projects we wanted to do inside our house are on hold while the stucco guys (who are outside my house at this very moment) finish their job. What we hoped would be several months of construction has turned out to be a much longer process. Is this frustrating? You bet! But we know given time things will eventually get done and that we are lucky to have the funds to do any of this, but while in the midst of construction, being patient or grateful isn’t always easy.

  • Getting through a transition year of school.
    We knew it would be a challenge for our son to transition to a new middle school in 8th grade, especially since my son had been homeschooled since 4th grade and he was now entering back into the public school system where academic demands were not flexible. Thankfully my son rose to the challenge and has done very well this year academically and he might even manage to complete his high school language requirements during this academic year. What we didn’t count on was that socially at this particular school, my son is suffering due to lack of diversity in his classroom. The school that we chose for his transition year was great for people that don’t thrive in the normal public school setting since it’s a hybrid school with both an online and in-person classroom component. What we did not count on was that the in-person kids in the middle school were mostly from rougher neighborhoods with gang activity so it was clear very early on in the school year that my son did not fit in with these kids and actually had a lot of anxiety being around them. So socially he has suffered this year as he has no classroom friends. We are counting down our time at this school and know that the high school that we moved here for will be a much better fit for him socially. 6 weeks left!

  • Adjusting to a new dog with a health issue we weren’t aware existed.
    A deal we made with my son in moving homes during his middle school year was that we would adopt a dog once being in our new home for 6 months. So to honor our promise to our son, we adopted a 2 1/2 year old rescue dog on Feb. 11th of this year being unaware of a health issue that she had. Before adopting her there was a small wound that wasn’t healing near where she pees but the foster mom caring for her thought this wound was on the mend so the dog was released to us to adopt. One week after we had her we realized that this small wound was not healing. Flash forward 2 1/2 months and 3 surgical procedures later, we FINALLY have confirmation as to why the wound isn’t healing (a foxtail embedded in scar tissue near her vulva) and have a plan to remedy it later this week with what we hope will be the final surgery. For anyone familiar with foxtails, they know they are a little barbed plant that can get inside an animal and it will keep traveling forward until it either works its way out itself or wrecks havoc inside the animal. On the bright side of things our new dog is super sweet with a very nice temperament; the rescue organization we adopted from has covered the costs of many of our surgical expenses; and most importantly, once this foxtail is finally removed we have high hopes that our dog will recover fully, finally be de-coned after 3 solid months of coning her, and have a happy life going forth.

Greetings from the North Bay

kroset 2 Comments

I’m finally touching base again after our move in July. For those that haven’t heard yet, my family moved from our home of 19 years in San Jose, CA to a new home two hours north in Santa Rosa, CA. Proximity wise we are not terribly far from where we used to be, (this move took us from the South Bay, one hour SOUTH of San Francisco Bay, to the North Bay, one hour NORTH of San Francisco Bay), however we knew when we moved here that it was going to be different and we were not wrong. It really is a whole new world up here in so many different ways, some good and some not so ideal. It is interesting really that it would be so different being the exact same distance from San Francisco as we were before. But the South Bay, AKA: Silicon Valley, is a stark contrast from wine country of Sonoma County where we are now.

To say that I’d been nervous about our move this past summer was an understatement. The three of us all were literally starting all over again with our whole lives not knowing anyone when we entered this town. And as a warm weather lover I was especially apprehensive knowing we would be having cooler temperatures and more rain in the winter months as it is colder up here with significantly more precipitation in the winter months (as we are currently discovering). Would we like it here was the big question.

To answer that question, we do like it – for the most part. I believe our quality of life has improved substantially. I credit this to several different reasons:

  1. Better school options then in the South Bay area. Because the South Bay was so tech heavy, competitive and academically driven we found the schools there were lacking big time in the area of arts (there were literally zero high schools we could see our son attending in a town of 1 million people!) When we found a public high school that we liked with an art magnet program associated with it in Santa Rosa we jumped at the opportunity. My son’s future high school is the primary reason we are in Santa Rosa today. And if for whatever reason that public high school does not work out for us next year there are three or four other alternatives here that have a better balance of academic and creative study, both public and private, that I could see working as well.
  2. Slower pace that comes with living in a small town while still having access to amenities. Santa Rosa is a smaller town but not too small. Population wise it is under 200,000. Since the population here is so much smaller than San Jose’s one million people, freeways here are substantially less crowded then they were in the South Bay. We can get to anything we need in 15 minutes or less. And the stores that I regularly shopped at down south are all here for the most part.
  3. More affordable housing. Keep in mind we moved from one of the most expensive U.S. cities to where we are now, so some might argue that Santa Rosa is as affordable as many U.S. towns. In San Jose we owned a small home that was in need of a foundation replacement, in a good neighborhood. With the money we sold that house for we were able to buy a much larger house in a very nice Santa Rosa neighborhood.
  4. Easy access to many regional and state parks, the ocean and Redwood trees. I’m an outdoorsy person so I love the numerous regional parks all around us and how easy that they are to access. I also love that Santa Rosa is an easy drive to both the ocean and the Redwood forest. I bought a regional park pass within my first month living here and I’ve already used it to enter a handful of regional parks in the area and I still have so many more to explore.
  5. Friendly people. Our efforts in reaching out to the community have been well received so far as people up here have been very friendly, especially our neighbors. Within about 2 months we met about 35 of our neighbors, many of which have dogs and we would see them outside walking them.
  6. Centrally located and an easy driving distance to Santa Rosa’s downtown and several other different towns with cute downtown shopping areas. Each of these surrounding towns have their own unique personalities and draw tourists to the area and are only a 15 or 20 minute drive from our house.
  7. Weather is mild and appealing for the most part. Yes there is a lot more rain in the winter months than San Jose had and it’s significantly hotter than San Jose in the summer months, but it is rare that it would ever snow here in the winter. In the summer, even though it is really hot during the day it cools down here in the early evenings making it very pleasant most of the time.

The biggest down sides I see here are:

  1. The lack of ethnic diversity. We realized that this town was not nearly as racially diverse as it was in San Jose. The South Bay has a huge population of Asian and Indian people (many working in high tech), Latino people, and people from many other various countries around the world. Here the population is primarily white and Hispanic. It lacks the heavy Asian and Indian population since it isn’t as much of a tech hub as the South Bay.
  2. Poorer population. The main industries here are health care, tourism, retail and tech. Compared to Silicon Valley though the tech industry pales in comparison. My husband is one of few here who is working in a high tech job where down in the South Bay it seemed the majority of the population worked in high tech. Because of this we notice a much poorer population overall. Our son noticed a different dynamic up here right away at school when there was no longer talk of expensive vacations or exotic places his classmates visited over their summer breaks which would have been the case of many of his old classmates. Instead new classmates’ summer break highlights included going to local nearby parks or being at home with their families.
  3. Higher cost of health care. Healthcare is a primary industry up here, the 3 primary health care providers being: Kaiser, Sutter and Providence. I don’t understand why but I was amazed at how much higher my doctor’s bills were here in comparison to the cost of equivalent health care in the South Bay. It is very strange that costs are so high here as the population up here seems to be older, as there are more retired people here than down in the South Bay. Whatever the reason is, the higher healthcare costs seem to be a thing.
  4. Lack of established friends. There is no substitute for having good friends nearby. When we moved I had to really extend myself and reach out and start to meet people. Although we have already begun to make friends in neighbors we see frequently, it is going to take years for us to form close friendships and its hard starting over again. At least we aren’t too far from our old place and we can still make occasional visits down to visit old friends. I’m confident with effort and time I’ll make strong friendships up here as well.

Uprooting

kroset Leave a comment

If you haven’t heard yet… I’m moving.

My family is kicking ourselves out of our San Jose, CA nest that we’ve painstakingly made our own over these past 19 years and are heading 2 hours north to Santa Rosa. For over 20 years my husband and I have talked about getting out of Silicon Valley and going somewhere less hectic but we could never figure out where we wanted to go. It wasn’t until recently, when considering high school possibilities for our son and not liking our options in San Jose, that we knew that if we were ever going to make a move out of town it needed to be before his high school years. So here we are, literally yanking our roots out that have so firmly took hold into the Bay Area ground, and are packing our stuff, which raises some very important questions:

What IS all of this stuff? How much stuff does one actually need? And at what point did I become so complacent?

If you know me at all, you know I am a minimalist. “One in, one out” is my motto when bringing new things into the house. Besides valuing original artwork and experiences I really don’t need or desire a lot of physical stuff. Unfortunately for me, my husband does not always share my motto and he often keeps a steady stream of Amazon packages coming to our house. Plus having a kid in the house makes my meager attempt at minimalism laughable, particularly whenever I suggest that my son considers passing on an old toy. So years of this behavior from my house mates has resulted in endless days of packing! How is it possible to box up 7 boxes of kitchens stuff and STILL not be anywhere near done in the kitchen? We’ve literally been packing for weeks and are still not done? I honestly think there needs to be a limit to how long people should be allowed to stay in one place before being forced to clean out their stuff! 19 years is definitely too long!

The second thing you may or may not know about me is that I don’t usually shy away from adventure and travel. When I first left home and went to college I regularly moved to a different town about every 2-3 years. I started at a new town when I left my hometown of Erie, Pennsylvania for Michigan State in East Lansing, Michigan. Two years later I transferred to Ringling School of Art and Design landing myself in Sarasota, Florida. After 3 years there, my first job took me to Huntington, West Virginia. Two years later I got the itch to move again and sought out a new job in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Two years later the itch was back, this time leading me to San Jose, California in the midst of the Dot Com years. Like clockwork, two years later, the Dot Bomb years came along and I lost my job. Had I not met Scott, I’m quite certain I would have headed back east at that time since I’d been feeling the pull to move again. But Scott WAS in my life, and whether he knew it or not he had inadvertently rooted me in San Jose. And somewhere in the 20 plus years that I’ve been here I stopped taking as many risks.

But all of my complacency has gone by the wayside this last month when our 20 year question of where to move to has been answered driven by finding a fitting high school for our son – which was found in Santa Rosa. In seaching for a home there, I’ve driven through San Francisco and gone over the iconic Golden Gate Bridge more times in this last month than I have in the past 10 years. We’ve sold our existing home and bought a new house in this last month. I’ve withdrawn Nathan from his beloved middle school and enrolled him in another hybrid schooling program up in Santa Rosa. We finally sold our van after trying to sell it for over a year now. We had no luck until just recently when we found the perfect buyer for it who LOVES the van and who coincidentally also had a vacation home just north of Santa Rosa that we will be staying in during our brief time of being homeless inbetween houses. And lastly, we’ve picked a contractor that is going to help us fix up our new home.

So although I haven’t been as adventurous as I’d wanted to be in my most recent years, I think these past two months more then makes up for things. As our roots continue to be yanked up in San Jose I can feel my adventurous side continue to awaken. There are places in Santa Rosa that I want to explore and new towns nearby that I want to see. Although leaving Silicon Valley is a big deal, and many places and people here will be missed, I’m sure that once the dust settles in Santa Rosa I’m going to be OK and new roots can start growing…just maybe not quite so deep this time 🙂

Baking Challenge

kroset Leave a comment

Yesterday I did something I’ve never done… I stayed in the kitchen all day by choice. Why? To do a baking challenge with my 12-year-old who recently saw the Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge season on Amazon Prime and decided that he too wanted to do one.

We started watching Dr. Seuss Baking Challenge about 2 weeks ago and before we got to the 4th episode, my son had already informed me that he was going to do this challenge at home with me and that Scott, my husband, was going to be the judge. I’m thinking, “Yeah, right, that is quite assumptious of you.” If you’ve never seen this challenge imagine having to balance the complexity of being a good baker who is creating not just one, but multiple tasty treats, as well as being a fabulous designer who sculpts, molds and designs whimsical, Seussian, creative designs using fondant and other decorating treats to match a look of a particular Dr. Seuss book. The best of both taste and design wins the prize. My son who had not even once baked his own cake by himself let alone sculpted and molded fondant had no idea how ungodly complex making these Seussian desserts was going to be. I on the other hand did. So I was more than hesitant and resistant when my son kept insisting that we were going to do this together.

If he hadn’t kept bringing it up and then telling me in great detail what he was planning to make and what specific ingredients he was planning on using I would have not mentioned it again and hoped he too would forget about it, but this was not to be. My son persisted. Finally I decided I was sick of hearing about it and the best thing to do would be just to do the darn thing with him so it would be done already. So we set a date for our challenge. As the date neared, I found I was getting more into it and decided not only would I do this thing but I would give it my best shot. If I was going to do it at all I was going to do it right.

The first thing we did after gathering our ingredients a few days before the big challenge was to get our fondant ready since we knew we were going to need a LOT of it to decorate our two creations. I found a recipe online that used mini marshmallows, confectioners sugar, water and a tiny bit of shortening and with that we made our fondant. The amount of sugar used to make it was impressive. The recipe said to keep adding the confectioners sugar a cup at a time until the batter was the appropriate texture and that’s what we did. It took so many cups of sugar to get to the right consistency that after we were done my son pulled up a Star Wars video clip that he said reminded him of us making the fondant together. It was the scene with Kelo Ren screaming out “More! More! More!” as they kept firing heavy guns and explosions at Luke in the 8th Star Wars movie.

After we had all of our ingredients my son continued talking about what spices he was intending to add into his recipes, as coming up with a tasty dessert was his focus. As for me, I took a different approach and decided to concentrate more on how my design and structure was going to look. Being a designer I cared a lot more about that and knew that in the end the design would matter just as much as the dessert did. So I created a base for my display which was going to support my 3 Truffula trees (our Dr. Seuss challenge was based on the book “the Lorax”). We both had done sketches beforehand of what our final project was going to look like.

Yesterday was the big competition day and after 7 hours of working in the kitchen with my son, I have to say I had WAY more fun doing this than I ever imagined. It was great! I got to be creative. It was fun bonding time with my son. And we had some crazy moments with some crazy laughs… like when my gloved hands were covered in Rice Krispy like treats and I didn’t know what to do with myself so I was looking from my one hand to the other until I finally just shrugged my shoulders and started eating it all off my gloves like a maniac causing my son to look at me laughing saying, “Mom, I’ll never be able to unsee that!” I hope he never does!

I was proud of my boy yesterday and was so happy to see him adapt and adjust his design when it started taking unexpected turns. And I was glad I could witness him making his first cake completely solo. Although the completion was actually neck and neck and both designs actually looked pretty good in the end, the judge awarded my son with first place due to his perseverance of not giving up. I do think my husband should have considered giving me some bonus points though for my willingness to be in a kitchen for as long as I was, however, I agreed with his decision. He absolutely deserved that prize!

Recent pondering

kroset Leave a comment

It’s been over a year since I’ve written something on my blog. “Letting Go of Fear” was the last column I wrote about last February. Thankfully the fear I had of going out again after the pandemic subsided awhile ago and I’m out in the world again. In going forth with the normalcy of life again I’ve discovered two things: 1) I’d forgotten a really important life lesson and 2) I’ve had a big shift in thinking regarding schooling children.

If we look for the positives in the time of the pandemic, one thing that comes to mind for me was that everything slowed down. Gone was the rushing around. Gone was competing or ‘keeping up with the Joneses.’ Life seemed simpler in so many ways. Now that things have ramped up again I’m noticing this intense urgency to keep up with everything and everyone and I’m out of practice. I notice this in many areas of my life, even in things I’ve taken up for fun. 

For example, I’ve recently gotten more into pickleball. The game has seriously exploded here in the Bay Area. I introduced the game to a friend of mine in the fall. After a short time this friend has become rather obsessed with the game and is going out multiple times a week to play. It is super fun having her to play with but I’ve realized at the same time I’ve been struggling to try to keep up with her. I was trying to figure out why I was feeling this way with a game that was supposed to be fun. I knew I was having the ‘keep up with the Joneses’ feeling but I didn’t understand why until recently. In the midst of ramping back up again after Covid, I’d forgotten that the only person I need to compete with in this world is myself – in pickleball and in everything else. My focus always needs to be on what I want in my life and never on what others are doing or what others want. No one is judging me except for myself!

I’ve also had some big changes in perspective since the pandemic regarding schooling. Pre-pandemic I had gotten a part time job going into elementary schools to teach art to elementary kids. When the pandemic hit I began homeschooling my son and my job was put on hold. This year my son is in 6th grade and he is maturing and becoming more independent so I decided to return to teaching art part time in an after school class at a nearby elementary school. I taught my first class two weeks ago and it was both nostalgic and also very eye opening. I love being an art teacher and bringing art to children (the nostalgic part) but I have a total shift in perspective now about how and what kids are being taught in school since the pandemic and in seeing first hand the benefits of homeschooling my son (the eye opening part).

As much as I know that the kids need art, I also know the importance of down time, free play, and free choice in what they play in the healthy development of all children. Kids in public schools (and in many private schools) do not get enough art, nor do they get adequate down time to play and explore, and they definitely do not get free choice in what to do with their time which is all necessary for healthy development and in figuring out what one’s strengths and interests are. Recess time to play and interact freely with peers helps build much needed relationship skills. I feel very torn coming into a school’s after school program after kids have had a long day of school to teach them art. I see so clearly now that although some kids do benefit greatly from my bringing art to them at that time, other kids in my class (ones pre-pandemic I might have labeled “problem kids”) would clearly rather be running around playing. The truth is that these kids are not problem kids at all, they simply desperately need time to run around and play. Does that mean those kids would not benefit from art? Absolutely not, everyone can benefit from art. It simply means at that time of day those kids would benefit more from running around and getting their energy out and having some free play to decide what they want to do. I can’t help but ask myself, am I now being a part of the problem by coming into the schools providing yet another required lesson for the kids?

Letting go of fear

kroset 2 Comments

This pandemic has taken a toll on me. I have a constant ache in my chest that consists of lots of fear and worry and a longing to connect. I find myself lonely a lot, despite being surrounded by a million people in the California Bay Area and living in close contact with my immediate family with friends and family near and far.

Overall, my main interaction with people onside my home has been limited since this pandemic began with outings (often solo) consisting mainly of walks around my neighborhood, errands, various small outings and occasional trips over to the Santa Cruz beaches or to hike in the Redwoods. It’s opened up for us more since my son was able to get vaccinated in late November and even more this month since my son’s Little League team started practicing. Many Bay Area people have been out and about for awhile now but since I tend to be more risk adverse than most my circle that I involve myself with is pretty small.

Three times now in the last two years my family of three ventured out of the state: once in our cross country trip in our van, once driving to Oregon and more recently flying to Florida. Upon exiting California it became very clear that much of the country is not carrying on as many people are here in the Bay Area. On our trip to Florida last month to visit my family it was hard to even know that Omicron was surging and as far as I could tell the deaths rates and case rate of Covid in Florida and California were not far different from each other. All the confusion of what to do about masking or not masking and distancing or not distancing is just so very confusing.

My husband and I had a long discussion (OK rather a fight turned into a discussion) a couple of nights ago over an upcoming trip he is planning with his group of friends to Las Vegas. I’m having trouble with it and in a not so loving way let him hear it. He in turn accused me of keeping him from his friends which was not at all my intention. After much back and forth we were able to see each other for what was really going on which is that we are both in different comfort zones with all of this and he is ready to begin living again and proceeding as usual and I’m…well…not quite there yet.

To try to alleviate the fear and loneliness I’ve been doing my best to meditate daily since the start of the year which has me regularly observing my feelings. They are so BIG and painful and sit in my chest surrounding my heart. It’s hard to not want to wish the feelings away like I want to do but I know I need to accept them for what they are and observe them. It aches so badly! I somewhat jokingly asked one of my friends the other day if anyone ever DIED from meditation?

I realize in the end how I choose to react to anything going on in life is my choice and my choice only. So I’ve made a conscience decision to really work on letting go of my fear. It is not an easy thing for me to do as I’ve always been a cautious person by nature. I’ve had trouble having faith, unlike another friend of mine, my so called “atheist” friend who somehow has a ton of it. I wish I too were that way. I am doing what I can to actively try to change.

The other day I took a hike with a friend into the green hills of California. We both basically willed each other to go out exploring beyond the safety of our small worlds. After catching up a bit in the beginning of our hike we decided to try an experiment with a silent hike together for the remainder of our hike. We’d be walking alone but together silently, and so began our mini retreat.

The thing both of us noticed right away in our silence was that we were noticing our surroundings whereas moments before we were caught up in our chatter and blind to our world. It was interesting and at times uncomfortable walking with her for so long in silence. We noticed our heart rates and footsteps (she walks faster than me going downhill, I walk faster than her going uphill); we observed the sounds in nature and saw animals at a farm; we waited patiently while a wild turkey we saw crossed onto our trail moved out of the way; we hiked while breathing in fresh air. It was a nice calm transition from feeling so alone to spending quality time with a friend who knows and supports me yet isn’t afraid to be with me without talking. Silent together.

When our hike had us pass through a working farm we saw many animals and I realized, like my friend and I, the animals were also together but silent. They were near each other but not communicating. In fact the only sounds I heard at all from all of them was noise over chickens fighting for food. They say that what separates us from some animals is that we are social creatures who need each other socially. But being social isn’t only talking with each other. Perhaps talking with each other is not even the most important part of socialization but rather having another person who cares in close proximity. I believe that’s what I’ve been lacking most over these last two years – the closeness of people. Being near my friend without talking was just as healing (if not more so) than chatting with her because I could still be near her, feel her support, and notice what was going on around me.

Getting out on hikes like this with a friend is definitely a step toward helping me move forward past my loneliness and fear. It was peaceful and beautiful, just what I needed. The heaviness that is sitting on my chest feels a little less achy today, less lonely and less raw.

Our journey to homeschool

kroset Leave a comment

We decided to homeschool our 5th grade son partially because of the pandemic but primarily after trying other options over the years and exploring both public and private alternatives around us we realized that a hybrid homeschool program is the best schooling option for him. After looking into several schools my husband and I felt that only one school in our area of San Jose, CA was a reasonable fit for our son. Let me repeat that: only one school near us was fit for our son. It is a public charter school that you get in by lottery. The school has a hybrid homeschool program where kids are in school just 2 days a week with a teacher and homeschooling 3 days.

You might ask, “What is wrong with your son that other schools weren’t a fit for him?” but that’s the wrong question to be asking. The question we all need to start asking is, “What is wrong with our schools that a boy like my son doesn’t belong in most of them?”

Let me tell you about my boy. He like many kids today that I’ve seen at our public schools has ADHD and struggles with anxiety. He does best in a class that is well controlled and structured. In school he doesn’t thrive in the core subjects (math & writing) but he manages slightly below grade level and does well with one-on-one tutoring or small groups of kids with similar needs. He is a really great reader, better than most with outstanding reading comprehension. In his writing he has a lot to say on certain subjects and his stories are incredibly creative, however his organizational skills are sometimes lacking and he might possibly be dyslexic, but our school district doesn’t test for dyslexia so I’m not certain. He knows an amazing amount of history, particularly WWII history (all self taught.) He enjoys learning about other countries, and doing hands on science experiments. He has a HUGE imagination and learns best through role play and creative play. At home he often draws and he makes stop animations of actual WWII battles using his Lego mini figures and doing his own voice overs. He learned to do all of this primarily on his own. He is driven to learn about things that he is interested about, yet most schools around us don’t support him.

Why is that? As an active parent volunteer in the public school system I have witnessed some things over the past six years and I have some theories on this.

Public schools in San Jose, CA cater to kids who are average in math, reading and writing, the subjects that they push really hard at school due to Common Core testing. Creative kids and active ADHD kids aren’t average since they often fall behind in these subjects. Kids who excel in those subjects aren’t average either and often end up bored in public school; they might thrive in a private school where academic standards in these subject are often higher but private schools like that would be a nightmare for our son. Class sizes in the public elementary classrooms are too big for any one teacher at 25 kids or higher. The schools that allow parent volunteers to come into the classrooms to help manage kids do better, however many schools don’t have enough parent involvement. Common Core State Standards were implemented to strive to get all kids to the same academic level at the same time but this goal is unrealistic. Richer districts with more parent participation have a greater chance at success since teachers are getting help in the classroom but regardless of how much parents do or don’t do, all kids (rich or poor) learn differently and develop at different rates and no amount of parent participation addresses that.

Last year during the Covid school shutdown I got an even clearer view of what was expected of kids inside the classroom. Because my son was having such a hard time I sat with him and helped him while he was online from 9:05-3:15 which was the required time on Zoom calls these kids were asked to endure. His anxiety was triggered daily due to the teacher giving lessons that were far too long for kids with ADHD to follow and assigning work that with unrealistic expectations. So great was the focus on math and writing there was little time left over for science, social studies or the arts. The teacher seemed to have little choice in this as she was constantly having to prep the kids for the next math and writing assessments. My son’s IEP small groups were not very helpful either as the kids in those groups had a widely diverse set of needs and many times the needs being catered to them were not what my son needed. The only benefits in those IEP small groups were that occasionally he got individualized help from his teacher and he got regular interaction with his peers. Had I not seen first hand what was going on last year I wouldn’t have known what a poor fit this school environment was for my son and I wouldn’t have switched to a homeschool program.

His new hybrid homeschool is a much better fit for him for many reasons. The class size is smaller with only 19 kids. The work he gets now in school is at an appropriate level for him so he isn’t overwhelmed by it and learning is led by the students’ interests. Kids don’t have to participate in regular math and writing assessments, therefore, being slightly below grade level in some areas is acceptable so long as he is continually learning and moving forward in those areas. Writing work is geared toward his interests not topics strictly assigned by the teacher. There is a lot of play based learning and little to no worksheets given for kids to do as they do mostly hands on exercises.  He is given time in school to interact with classmates and have a snack. There is no homework given which leaves time for more play outside of school. Quiet reading time is given in the classroom after recess to ease in transitioning back to learning time. At home my lessons with him are catered to his needs and are way more effective than his group IEP ever was. The focus is more evenly distributed between math, reading/writing, science, art, social studies and P.E. Due to all of these things I am not seeing the anxiety at school that I saw last year, or in previous years for that matter, nor am I’m getting push back from him in the writing or math assignments that I am giving him at home since they are now at an appropriate level for him. It’s a complete turn around from last year. My son loves school now and he’s learning a lot!

We know that we are lucky for so many reasons, the primary one being that we can afford for me to not work and that I have the ability to teach my son and give him this kind of education. We are also fortunate that we got a good number in this school’s lottery! It would be nice if everybody who wanted to homeschool their child could do it. But my wish is this: I wish that all schools got rid of Common Core Standards and more schools offered 5 day a week in school programs using the model that my son’s current school does. I would love to send my kid to in person school 5 days a week but the types of schools like the one I’m looking for are rare or nonexistent in most areas.

Our plan is to continue to either homeschool our son at the school he’s at or find some other non-traditional teaching solutions for his middle and high school years for as long as we are able to. If anyone knows of a middle or high school in their city or town similar to the ideal one that I was describing please let me know about it as we would consider relocating!

Letting go of expectations

kroset Leave a comment

Yesterday I turned 51. This was the second birthday I celebrated since Covid began in the U.S. I feel as though I’ve been through several marathons and aged about 20 years since last year. A year ago on my birthday I wanted to surround myself virtually with family and friends via multiple Zoom video calls. This year was different. After a very tough year of dealing with Covid and everything else surrounding it my husband and I also dealt with (and are still dealing with) behavioral issues from my 9-year-old son which resulted in countless multi-hour, meltdowns throughout the year. I had no energy or patience left for Zoom. Instead I chose to spend my day solely with my husband and son and opted to go out for a hike in nature instead – something that I love to do.

I had a great birthday morning at home. My husband and son made me feel special by decorating the house for me and had gifts for me to open. They treated me well. I also enjoyed getting various phone calls and messages from friends and family throughout the day. Yet, the afternoon of my birthday did not go as I’d hoped it would as my son had a big meltdown which disrupted our afternoon and my vision of a perfect birthday. These expectations of how I feel things ‘should’ go are a problem as things rarely ever go as planned for anyone – especially for those living with a willful, defiant child. There is a simple equation for this: Expectations = Disappointment = Unhappiness.

During this past year this simple equation has become more and more in my face as I’ve told myself countless times that I would benefit greatly by letting go of my expectations. But my brain can not help but remain hopeful. I somehow think that if I just try hard enough I’ll be able to figure things out and control the outcome. Whether it be the problem of my son’s behavior or anything else. I’ll try to fix it, to make everything alright, but I am slowly learning that that this kind of thinking is not at all realistic and perhaps the most important thing for me to do right now is to let go of any expectations of how the outcome of something is going to turn out and to be OK with whatever it is now and whatever it becomes in the future. When I am able to successfully do this, I notice that I free myself from possible disappointment and in the end I am happier.

Yesterday, on my birthday, I WAS able to let go of my expectations. Instead of getting upset as I often do when my child blows up (in this case right when we were getting into the car to leave the house for our hike), instead of reacting as I might have done in the past, I stepped away and let my husband handle the meltdown and I took my cellphone to our backyard. I laid down on the grass and looked up toward the big walnut tree in our backyard and basked in the sunshine and talked on the phone with my sister. Sure there was some yelling and screaming happening in the background of our phone call at times. Sure I was annoyed that we weren’t leaving for the hike when we planned to leave for it and we actually left much later than I would have liked. However there was nothing to really do about any of it and in that moment in the grass talking with my sister I was as present and as real as I could get. I simply let it all go – and was fine with it – even slightly blissful if I dare say.

No Expectations = Fulfillment = Joy

If 2020 was a year of survival and of hanging on to unrealistic expectations that couldn’t possibly come to fruition; perhaps 2021 can be a more realistic and accepting year. May this be a year of letting go of dreams that didn’t happen just as we wanted them to. Let this be a year of whatever we end up with in the end is still alright and that we can grieve our losses but still be grateful for what we’ve got now. It might not be a year that we envisioned or as pretty looking on the outside as we’d want it to be, but it will be one that is a lot more freeing, realistic and real.

The need to know

kroset Leave a comment

Nine years ago today was the day we first brought our boy home with us from the hospital. We’ve been telling our son his birth story since the day we brought him home so it has never been news to him. If you were to ask my son about his adoption story he would be very comfortable telling you about it and about his birthparents as they are as familiar to him as his aunts and uncles.

I am so thankful that we took this open approach with my son and that he knows where he came from. Every adoptive child is different in their want or need to know about their birth family but I can tell you with certainty that OUR son is glad to know.

We recognize this through his favorite stuffed animal, Blue Dog who has been at our house since just before our son’s birth. Usually when someone gives me or my son a gift I am good about remembering who gave it to us and when it came into our house. However, in the case of our son’s favorite stuffy, I can not for the life of me remember who it came from and my son is really, REALLY bothered by that. He has asked me repeatedly over the years who gave him Blue Dog and despite my narrowing it down to the packages I received right before he was born I haven’t been able to pin point the sender.

“Ma, think!” He will say, “You must know who. Just ASK some people!” Which I have! There were a few people that gave us a bunch of stuff right before our son was born and I’ve asked them all, one friend even as recently as this month, yet still I have no clue of his origins.

“Why do you care so much where he came from?” I’ll ask.
“Because I’d want to thank them for him,” he says.
“But isn’t the important thing that he is here now for you?” I’ll ask.
“Yeah, but I still want to know where he came from!” he’ll say.

OK. There is no arguing with that. It’s his favorite stuffy after all. But I told him that this is something he may need to accept that we won’t ever know.

In my head I say silently to myself, “Thank goodness we did an open adoption!” Thank goodness this is a stuffy we are talking about and not his birthparents we are trying to find since he obviously cares very much about a things source.

In terms of his stuffy, sometimes I think it’s actually better not knowing its sender. Instead we can envision that Blue Dog divinely appeared in our house 9 years ago and was placed charmingly inside his crib to be there for my son to love.

At least that’s the current story I’ll tell my son and I plan to stick to it unless I hear otherwise!

Do YOU know where his loved Blue Dog came from?

If YOU sent us this stuffy please let me know so I can finally reveal his origins to my son.