Not Ready

I have always sorted out my thoughts through words, and this blog has been a wonderful tool in my life.  I have a set of unpublished rules, though, that I write by so that I don’t share “too much” so publicly, especially in regards to my kids.  So lately I’ve been mulling over a specific issue in my life, and knew that when I found the right words to say about it that fit my privacy rules, I would write about it.  Until then, I would stay silent about it.  It’s been hard.  I think I’m ready.

What it boils down to, is that my kids are growing up way too fast, and I’m having a tough time dealing with it.  More specifically, Silje is growing up way too fast.  That doesn’t sound like such a huge statement, when I say it that way.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m so proud of the young lady she is becoming.  I’m bursting with pride.  Sure, she and I clash from time to time, but I think that may be part of the process.  That’s a part of relationships.  She has always been an old soul.  She has always loved talking with adults about adult things.  She has always been quite smart.  

One of the many reasons we decided to homeschool her were that academically a classroom setting wasn’t challenging her, and she started developing what I would call lazy habits.  I knew that being smart only gets you so far.  You need to know how to work hard too.  To me, that’s at least as important, if not more important than natural “brains.”

Our state requires homeschoolers to take a standardized test every year (our choice as to which test) and this year we spent the extra money to get some more specific evaluation done.  As usual, the examiner told us what we already knew.  Silje is way ahead of her peers.  She made suggestions to get Silje in speech, and as I looked at her test results, and the curriculum that we were finishing up for the year, I realized that the majority of Silje’s school work this upcoming year would be around 7th grade level.  Other kids her age will be starting 5th grade.

We knew when we started this homeschooling journey that we may end up here.  We knew there was a strong chance Silje would start college classes early.  As we’re nearing it, just a few years away, I’m feeling so robbed.  I don’t want her done early.  I want her to stay little.  As I start to buy her deodorant, and facial cleanser, and she starts borrowing my shoes, and we’re experiencing those huge mood swings, I feel like I just stepped off of our leisurely childhood and onto this expressway towards adulthood and it’s freaking me out.

For awhile, she started getting this sense of entitlement that was creeping up as she was hitting the preteen years.  She kept telling us we needed to buy her this.  We needed to drive her there.  We needed to sign her up for this.  All her friends were doing x, y, or z.  The demands that we feed her whims were getting on my nerves, so I talked to one of my friends with college aged girls about the problem.  (I may have talked about this before.)   How to I communicate to Silje her value, while letting her know the world doesn’t exist to serve her?  The friend I was talking with suggested we start getting Silje into volunteer work.  The best cure for entitlement is serving others.

So it took awhile to set up, but she spends a few hours a week at a local nursing home.  I only required her to be there for an hour a week.  She started begging me to leave her longer because there was so much work to be done.  She reads the people there books.  She delivers newspapers.  She holds their hands.  She sets up their bowling pins.  She reads Bingo numbers.  She just asked me if this summer if we could squeeze in 2 afternoons a week instead of one.  I still haven’t figured out how to make that work.  I went to an event there with her, and as we left the building, we passed several residents who Silje stopped to talk to on the way out, and they made a point to tell me what an incredible young lady she is.  She is.  

I know I still have 2 in diapers, and not even half my kids are school aged yet.  It’s just I’m seeing this end in sight with Silje now.  It’s like it snuck up on me.  I only have a small handful of years with her left.  Sure, she’s only turning 10 next month, but her high school learning will probably be done quickly as she just plows through her work.  I’ll have nothing left to teach her in 4-6 years, depending on how she paces herself.  Those numbers are way too small for my comfort.  We’re over halfway done.  When did that happen?

Right now she’s trying to make a fairy couch outside, by stitching together some wool felt scraps and stuffing the cushions with Missy’s fur.  She’s still so much a little girl.  I have to remind myself of that all the time too.  I want to protect her childhood.  I don’t want to rush her to adulthood.  It feels so out of my hands, though.  I just keep leading her to the next level, and I wish I would stop.  I know pushing her to adulthood would be wrong, but forcing her to stay a child when she is capable of great things would be wrong too.  So I’m waiting, and watching, and taking one day at a time.

There is so much I want to teach her.  I want to tell her she can be anything.  I want to prepare her for everything.  I want to tell her that if she decides to be a stay at home mom, she wouldn’t be wasting her talent or her brains, and that kids are absolutely worth it.  I want to tell her that if she never even wants to be married that’s fine too.  I don’t know her future, but I want her to know I’ll have her back whatever it may be.  I want her to cling to God, and I want her to see those people no one else notices.  I want her to dream big.  I’m honestly scared sometimes that her dreaming big will take her far away from me.  Yet it’s what I want for her.  

Silje is my right arm in this house.  She acts so grown up all the time that I have to remind us both often that she’s still a kid.  She is so capable to do so many chores.  She’s a deep thinker.  She’s read through whole sections of the library.  

These days I’m staying up late working on her next year’s goals and plans, and as I prepare to prepare her for higher education.  I’m not sure I’m ready for this.  I’m not sure that matters anyway, because God never asked me if I was ready for this.  

I’m not sure any mother ever is.