Today we had the bas mitzva party of my second daughter – it was beautiful.  There’s a really nice feeling after it’s all over to know that it was successful in every way, particularly that it was a celebration that was special and meaningful to our daughter.  And I’m glad that everyone was happy with it, too! 

They began by making fleece blankets for hospitalized children – I feel that this age is a spiritual milestone and it’s appropriate to mark it with a clearly defined group act of altruism for others when celebrating.  Then everyone introduced themselves informally, and shared how they knew my daughter.  People often have a hard time wrapping their mind around how kids can make friends if they aren’t in school.  They aren’t aware that there are so many other venues, because that’s how they themselves made friends, and that’s how their kids made friends – so they tend to think that homeschooled kids must be lonely or socially isolated because they don’t attend school.  It was interesting to hear the varied responses, so different from most parties like this – in which the only answer would be, ‘school’.   There were friends from our old neighborhood, homeschooled friends, synagogue friends, teenage friends whom she assisted as a junior counselor for their camp last year, Girl Scout friends, camp friends, and cousins.  It was a very nice group of girls.

An hour into the party, just in time for the introductions and meal, two more friends arrived.  They came by bus all the way from NY (4 hours away) just to be there, and planned to take the next bus home an hour after the party (but we convinced them to stay the night and take a bus tomorrow instead :)).    Here’s the story behind that friendship: my older daughter was friendly with the older sister from sleepaway camp last year, and invited her to spend a weekend with us, which she did.  When she was here, she got to know my younger daughter, and they liked each other, too.  Then when the friend invited my older daughter for a weekend in NY, she invited my younger daughter as well.  And when my girls got there, they got to know the younger sister of that friend, and the two younger (ie, 11 year old) girls hit it off.  Those were the two friends, sisters, who travelled so far just to be there.  Isn’t that amazing, to travel 8 hours to be somewhere for 1.5 hours?!?  I was very touched that they wanted to do that.

But I digressed. 🙂  After that was the meal, then a speech by my daughter, which she independently planned and talked over briefly with my husband to clarify her ideas.  I had no idea what she was going to say, but she was articulate and poised (didn’t use notes) and shared some meaningful concepts that she thought about.  This particular child has a depth to her thought process – it’s a gift – and comes up with concepts that are surprisingly (to those who don’t know her already) mature and eloquent (her 15 year old brother only partially jokingly told her she should write a commentary on the Bible).  My mom then spoke, followed by a group presentation by five of her friends, which we didn’t know about until a few minutes before we called on them!  Then my father in law spoke, and my husband spoke – everyone spoke briefly but from the heart.  I’m not a fan of long and drawn out speeches (and goodness knows it’s hard for younger people to sit through), but it was the perfect time to just share their appreciation of her and that’s what they all did. 

After the speeches, we had dessert and dancing.  I was slightly concerned that we hadn’t left enough time for dancing, since we started the dancing only 15 minutes before we were scheduled to end.  But no one left until a half hour after the scheduled ending time, and a bunch more stayed an hour later, so they got lots more dancing and fun in together. 

It was a beautiful event, and the credit goes mostly to my two oldest girls. They planned it, the schedule, activities, handled the invitations and rsvps, decorations, down to the smallest details, like borrowing the appropriate dance music from friends.  They planned the menu and prepared most of the food.  I did help with the food prep (meaning I chopped all the veggies and cut up some fruit) and set up, but not much more than that.  They’re quite a team. 

In the last 28 months, we’ve had two baby boys, made a bar mitzva, and two bas mitzvas.  It’s been wonderful to be so involved with all of these celebrations, and I’ve enjoyed every bit of it.  I suppose I’ll somehow adjust to the quieter pace, now that the next bar mitzva is 3.5 years away (and then a few months later, another bas mitzva!).  🙂

Avivah 

About two months ago, I saw a community notice about a paid apprenticeship for teens.  It’s a new program, for teens ages 16 and up, to teach them about financial responsibility, management, investing, etc, and was limited to only 10 teens.  As soon as I finished reading the notice, I reached for the phone and called the person who was organizing it.  My son was away at camp then, but it had his name written all over it, and I wanted to get more information as well as present him as a potential applicant since he couldn’t call himself. 

I enjoyed our conversation and was impressed with how she was putting the program together, as well as her intent in creating it.  My son had said a short time before that, that he was feeling he needed more guidance in learning what he wanted to learn about finances, and wished he had someone who had done what he wanted to do to give him some guidance or support.  I told her about my son, and asked if they would consider admitting him even though he wasn’t yet 16 (actually, his 15th birthday was the next day).  She asked me about him, and told me they would consider it, but they really needed to speak to him.

Her manager called me a couple of days later, to ask me to have my son call them.  I said he was away, but could call them two weeks later, as soon as he got back.  I sent my son the flyer with the info, and told him about it on visiting day.  He was excited about the possibility of participating, but worried about his chances for being accepted, particularly since he was younger than 16, and because he was concerned that an opportunity like this would be flooded with interested teens.

When he got home, he called them right away, and was told to come in for an application. The application required writing an essay outlining his long and short term goals, as well as answering some other thought provoking questions.  After all of the applications were received, they were going to interview teens that they were interested in.

My son wrote the essay, and gave it in a couple of days later, a day before the deadline.  He was told that the program would start a couple of weeks later, and if they were interested, he would hear from them within a couple of days to come in for an interview.

Days went by, and he didn’t hear anything.  I suggested he call them and make sure his application wasn’t misplaced, but he didn’t want to – he said that if they hadn’t called, it was because he hadn’t made it into the group of people they wanted to speak with.  When a few days after that, the date the program was slated to begin passed, he knew that he wouldn’t be included.

He was disappointed, but he then told me that he had mixed feelings about it all along, because he was concerned how he was going to successfully manage his intensive school schedule with the demands of the program.  I told him that because he was ambivalent about it, he wasn’t projecting a clear positive intention about it and for that reason alone I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t been accepted.

Okay, fast forward to two days ago.  When we started discussing options to school, his mind starting opening up to possibilities, and he started thinking how much he would like to be in this program.  Guess what came in the mail today?  An acceptance letter welcoming him to the program, along with the changed start date (two weeks from now), dated two days ago – written the very day that he changed his attitude about it! 

You could say it’s a coincidence, that they just ‘happened’ to write his acceptance on the very day he released his ambivalence about the program, weeks after his application was given in and the program was set to begin.   But I don’t think so.  I think situations like these give us the opportunity to see the hand of G-d, and that every day is filled with small miracles when we take the opportunity to see them. 

However it happened, receiving that letter today, right after we made the official calls notifying everyone involved that he wouldn’t be returning to school, was even more of a validation and encouragement to my son that he made the right decision! 

Avivah

I’m really, really glad to say that we’ve made the decision regarding my son’s schooling for next year, and all of us are very happy with it.  It’s been on my mind nonstop for several days now, and it’s a relief to have the decision made.

Sooooo…….our 15 year old son will be ……. HOMESCHOOLING!  Once again for the entire day!  (For anyone new, we’ve homeschooled everyone for the last eight years, but sent oldest ds to a high school last year and brought him home for the secular studies.) I’m thrilled, so are all the kids, and the best thing is that he’s chosen it and has a really good feeling about all of it.

His principal doesn’t have a good feeling about it, though.  My husband left a message notifying them he won’t be returning, and a record was probably set for the speed of a call being returned.  🙂  He told my husband that every child belongs in school, and wanted to know why he was leaving.  My husband told him that we’re grateful to the school and teachers for all they’ve done, but it wasn’t fully meeting his needs.  And that the only way we saw it possible for those needs to be met was for him to be allowed to miss the night learning, and we didn’t want to ask the school to change policy for him.  The principal was very unhappy about it – his teacher and principal have both told us that our son is a ‘model student’, so it’s a loss for them to have a student like that leave. 

My husband was slightly surprised that the principal responded, “All I can do is beg.”  If anything, he would have expected him to make a counteroffer.  But we’re glad he didn’t, because our decision was made and it saved us getting into negotiating.  We’re grateful they have such a positive feeling about our son, and I’m glad that they had a chance to see a homeschooled boy excel in all areas, in ways that to their way of thinking homeschooling should have prevented him from succeeding (social skills, learning level, behavior, confidence, etc). 

So now I’m having to make some sudden adjustments mentally regarding this, and have to start making plans with him. Something really nice aout having a child this age is: they’re mature enough to access adult level learning.  He’s not limited in his Judaic studies to private tutors or groups of homeschooled boys.  Our community has tons of options for adults, and it’s very exciting to realize how much is available when you start to open up your mind and eyes.  He’s looking into pursuing some learning options that we think will be wonderful, and I have 100% confidence that he’ll be able to pursue an education that looks different than the school model, but will fully prepare him for life. 

Avivah

I can’t remember if I’ve shared this with you before, but we don’t have a tv.  And and until three years ago, we didn’t watch videos, either.  But at that point, I felt that it would be helpful homeschooling-wise to have the ability to selectively use videos, and we accepted the offer of a family member who was giving away their combo monitor/vcr.

I was concerned when we did that, it would be the beginning of a slippery slope, but I’ve been careful to use it with thought and caution, and it’s been great.  I’ve found it especially valuable for science and history videos that supplement our homeschooling (National Geographic and History Channel presentations have been especially useful), but it’s also been nice to watch something purely for fun as a family.  Once a month, we have a family movie night, and finding videos that I find something we all really like and appreciate takes effort.   There are very few contemporary movies that I approve of, even those rated G.     

Last night was our movie night, and everyone really enjoyed the movie we chose, so I thought I’d share about it with you.  It’s called The Shaggy Dog; it was the top grossing movie of 1959, Disney’s first live action movie, and a lot of fun.  There was a bit of suspense, but not enough to make it scary for anyone (I have one child who’s particularly sensitive to this).  It’s about a boy who turns at unexpected times into a dog and then back to himself, because of an ancient spell that is finally broken at the end.  Everyone loved it – the kids all declared it the best movie they’ve ever watched, and I also enjoyed it alot.  So much so, that they asked if they could watch it again, using as an excuse their 9 year old brother who missed it last night when he went to watch the Orioles with my husband (earned 2 free tickets from the summer reading program).  Being the very kind and generous mother I am, and knowing that next week I’m going to be shifting into homeschooling mode and won’t let everyone stay up late for something like this, I agreed, and they’re all happily sitting together and watching it right now. 

Avivah