Had a small breakdown today. I could not get the stapler to work. Here was my first thought:

“Ugh! How am I going to homeschool my kids if I can’t even work a stapler!”

Granted, the last thing that was stapled was probably batman’s cape or a three-inch thick stick to some piece of cardboard, but still, one should be able to work a stapler before attempting braver acts of humanity, right?

It’s just my inadequacy and insecurity talking. I know their voices well. I am putting on a brave face, chanting under my breath, “It’s fine. It’s going to be fine,” and moving some things around to create better work spaces. The problem is not school supplies or furniture though—we could learn more in the grass with a stick and a grasshopper. It is my mind that needs rearranging.

It’s starting to happen though. We have had a wonderful summer together. Oh, we’ve still had the sibling bickering and the territorial face-offs and the technology/ media wars, but something is different. I think it’s in my head. You see, instead of surviving this summer, I am working to savor and sustain the summer. I love the feeling of time and space that summer brings. I can’t make the summer last, but I am hoping that our experiment will extend some of that feeling of time and space that we have desperately needed the last year or so.

The kids’ online independent study program begins in a week. I can’t bring myself to say that summer is over, because it is not. (Plus, I will reserve that declaration for when I begin teaching again in a month) We’ll still leisurely read books together and swim and play and travel, which is honestly what I hope we can do all year. It’s going to get tricky once my fall teaching schedule arrives, and I can’t imagine that it will be anything but a huge heaping mess for a while. Part of my goal in writing this blog is to document our experiment, and I am grateful that you are coming along for the ride.

So, I head out today to the school supply sales to breathe in the newly sharpened pencils and crisp paper, but I’ll probably only come home with posty notes (a minor compulsion) and a stapler. Besides that, I think we have all we need. (Will someone please remind me of that mid-August when I am in a slushy heap of what-were-we-thinking desperation? Thanks.)