Eleven takeaways from the last year

This week I’m one year older and reflecting. Here are eleven insights I've gained over the last year.

1. I now have a teenager and it’s actually OK. When my kids were young people warned me, “Watch out for those teenage years,” or “Just wait until they are a teenager.” Having a teenager has it’s hard moments, but doesn’t every stage of life? I’m seeing years of hard parenting beginning to bear fruit in the character of an emerging young adult. I’m so proud of her. This gives me a little nod that we haven’t messed everything up. We’ve been on a good path.

2. The best part about marrying your best friend is that as our kids get older and more independent we have even more time to spend time together: traveling, camping, hiking, and eating excellent food (just the two of us). I don't take it for granted because there were so many years where it was a logistical hurdle to go on a date. Now it happens multiple times each week.

3. I am a more engaged mom, a more attentive wife, and a more peaceful woman when my phone “sleeps” from 5:00 PM to 8:00 AM. I sleep in my upstairs bedroom, the phone sleeps in a downstairs office.

4. People don’t talk enough about how you can change your homeschool methodology over the years. It’s OK if your homeschool table for your seventh grader doesn’t look the same as it did when she was in first grade. It’s OK if your methodology develops from leaning towards unschooling and unit studies to a more classical education. It’s OK if halfway through it all you layer in Latin, flashcards, and tests. It doesn’t mean one was wrong or more right than the other. It means you adjusted and shifted based on the needs of your children.

5. My favorite way to spend a morning is to wake up well before my children. I arm myself with a hot cup of coffee, meditate on my devotion in silence, calm my heart through journaling, and just generally gather my thoughts for the day. Getting up in the early five o'clock hour is something I never regret doing.

6. I have a limited number of hours in my day. I like to say “yes” when people ask me to do things. I like to be able to do it all. When I say “yes” to someone, I am actually saying “no” to someone else. Thinking more about that unintended “no” has caused me to reevaluate how many times I can actually say “yes.”

7. The foresight I had in teaching my babies and toddlers how to independently play, be entertained, find their own interesting activity, or be alone in a room without me, has reaped countless rewards over the years. This year it allowed first graders to find their own entertainment so that I can teach pre-algebra without interruptions.

8. Middle schoolers don’t actually need iPhones. I admire other parents who have withstood the astounding amount of relentless wearing down pressure a pre-teen/teen can apply on this subject. You are my heroes. Keep it up.

9. I don’t like cardio workouts but I need them for my physical and mental health. Hiking mountains is my current cardio. I can do harder things today than I could a decade ago—like the time we hiked 19 miles to the 10,000+ foot summit of Mt. San Jacinto. It’s OK that my cardio isn’t a spin bike, an elliptical, or jogging. I am not competing with anyone else, and I’m proud of myself.

10. It is actually incredibly rewarding to sit with your children in church, hear them sing, whisper to you “I remember this story,” hear them recall bits of the sermon later in the week, and make a connection to their lives. The years I spent in the cry room wrangling loud toddlers and disruptive preschoolers were proven fruitful despite making me feel fruitless at the time.

11. I thrive on routines and predictability (and so does my entire family). This past year we’ve embraced it. Waffle Weekend, Friday Marvel Movie Night (with a bath for mom), Friday Beach Day, Sunday Morning Cereal, Thursday night Cocktail Night, and Saturday date night in. There’s more, but I’m stopping there. I used to think it was lame to have such a routine, but I actually love it. It gives all of us a framework for our week, something to look forward to, and has knit the fabric of our family experiences tighter. I wish we had started this years ago.

Snippet of my week

Speaking of more dates this year, we had a double date day with friends at Disneyland this past week. It was a bit of an early birthday celebration and also a fun way to spend a Tuesday in May. Here’s a picture of Caleb and me.

Thanks for reading! What was a takeaway you've had over the past year? I would love to hear about it! Just hit reply if you'd like to respond. (When you hit reply, your message goes directly to my email. It’s a private conversation between just us.) I read all your messages and try to respond, but not always in a timely manner. Sorry! And if you enjoyed this email, you’d be doing me a favor by forwarding it to someone else who might like it.