About Time

I’m back. Did you miss me? Or rather miss news about the #5 Allans? What shock you must be in to see that I’ve actually added more content after a five week hiatus. I know you’re thinking, “it’s about time” while also hedging that thought against the knowledge that you’re probably about to read inane babblings. You can thank me now for taking up ten minutes of your time that you’ll never get back, because if you wait until you’re done, you might forget.

As per usual in the fall, we started school. That’s a no-brainer. Ha! See what I did there? Anyway, I’d love to tell you what grades everyone is in, but we homeschool so that information is not exactly obvious. What’s definitely obvious is either their love or distain for school and how, like a Jack-in-the-box’s popping, you never know from day to day which way it’s going to go. Only eight more years of this. Or is it ten? Maybe it’s seven? Maybe I should find out what grades they are in…

What I do know is that Jake is in his last year at the University of North Florida and I couldn’t be more excited for him. He did end up securing the unpaid internship with the Mayo Clinic and has loved just about every shift he’s completed there. From the business casual dress to the internal meetings to the learning and working on new projects, he’s found that the free snacks in the lunchroom is a dream to a poor, starving college student. Don’t ask me what he actually does there, because I’m sure to mess it up, but I know it has to do with “segmenting” and “thresholds” and “3-D printing” and “body parts”. In my defense, it’s not always easy to pay attention when my “associates” are on Facetime calls with me.

Isaac had two “first day of school” moments this year. The first one was hopefully his last ‘first day of school’ as he should also graduate this May. Please notice with me how you can take the boy out of homeschooling, but you can’t take the homeschooling out of the boy. Has anyone seen his shoes?

His other first day was at our co-op. Now you might be asking, “but Heidi, didn’t he already attend your co-op and then graduate from there?” and I would say “that’s so nice of you to remember that,” and you might respond by saying “well, of course. I read every post and am completely up-to-date on all the going’s on in your family” and I would blush and reply, “you’re too kind” and then I would finally remember to get back on point because I’m not supposed to be wasting more than ten minutes of your time and tell you that he is teaching coding (Python) to the high school group. Class, meet Professor Isaac!

It’s hard to separately report what the girls are up to because, besides being in different grades and having different subjects, they do everything together. They both belong to a youth orchestra, which takes up their Saturday mornings, a volleyball team, which takes up most weekday afternoons, and Chick-fil-A, which eats up the rest of their time. At this point, you might be asking, “since when has Anna worked at Chick-fil-A? How old is she?” and I would fill you in by saying “she is 14 now and began last month” and then you would say “I didn’t know” and I would apologize by saying “I’m so sorry I didn’t mention it before now” and you would forgive me and hope that I stop doing this.

Doing so many activities together means the girls have a lot to say about each one. I truly enjoy listening to their analytical conversations, but sometimes I have to put an end to it in the interest of academic progress.  Except sometimes I lose the battle, like I did the other day. After telling the girls to turn off their volleyball discussion and get back to schoolwork, Ellie replied, “Mom. Sisters for life. School for high school,” to which Anna responded, “Yes!!! Life code cracked,” ran over for a high five, and then they continued to talk about volleyball.

Since Jake’s in Florida, Isaac comes and goes between school and work and hobbies, and the girls do practically everything together, by default then James and Caleb are left at home to their own devices. And by ‘devices’ I mean that I’m constantly kicking them off some device or other. To be fair, a lot of what they are doing is “research” or Duolingo to practice German (or is it French this week?) or sending Jake messages or finishing up their turns that they get two times a week for three days each.

When the boys aren’t on a computer, there is almost no safe place free from their noise or mess. Legos all over the basement floor: check. Airsoft rifles and bbs all over the kitchen table and floor: check. Snack wrappers and dishes in the living room: check. Various socks and sweaters randomly tossed: check. Giggles, shouts, screams, fights from every corner of the house: check. Tackle football indoors: check. Tackle football outside: check. One might ask when school gets done in the midst of all this chaos and busyness and I might answer that, miraculously, it does and you might wonder why I’m incredulous about it and I might spend time going over that but who wants to sit here and read my introspective thoughts on home schooling when you could be doing literally anything else right now? Suffice it to say, James’s favorite subject this year is math and Caleb’s is science, so I guess we’re doing something right.

These days you can find Danny in Seoul or anywhere Japan or Romania or London or California or 240 feet below sea level. He was home for a good portion of the year, but this fall home has been something to be seen from a rearview mirror.  He amazes me with his ability to handle the travel, work difficulties, time zones, and wife, and still have a smile on his face. Though Danny has seen an uptick in work trips, there’s no place I’d rather you find him than right beside me.

Is it my turn now? Well. Umm. I…uh…I solved the Wordle puzzle in two guesses last week. I cheered loudly at some volleyball games. I reffed some tackle football games. I visited with my sister in person a few weeks ago, but we failed to capture photo evidence of us together so she needs to come back. I sat and wrote this post. And honestly, it even feels like I got to have some conversations with you throughout it too. You might say “think nothing of it” because you’d rather forget those moments and move on, but I might humbly counter with “it was so nice of you to check in” and then you might respond with “oh, look at the time” and then I’ll have to let you go because otherwise you may never open danberall again!

(Please come back.)