In the next week, I will be taking each one of the kids out of school for our annual “hooky day with Mom” event. We all look forward to this day – them because they get a full day away from school just to have a little fun, and me because I get quality, uninterrupted, one-on-one time with each child individually.
It’s amazing what comes out in each of their personalities when they get me all to themselves. Add to that the fact that we’re doing something that they chose to do, that speaks to each of them individually, and I find that I suddenly get to know each one of them in a new and different way.
Sloan is first, because last year he had to be last and it rained on his day, which means we were relegated to seeing a movie at the last minute. It’s supposed to rain again today, but that won’t matter, because this year he’s decided he wants to visit Titanic: The Experience in Orlando.
This is my kid who loves history. He is fascinated by museums and relics, and by the drama of the past. I love that about him. He’s curious, and he comes alive when learning about the lives who came before us. So in just a few minutes, we will pack up the car and make the trek to Orlando. No doubt he will talk my ear off before we arrive.
He has lots of words to say.
I’ll be drinking one more cup of coffee before we leave.
Tia and Landon have already decided they want to go to Busch Gardens on their days off. Tia likes the shows, and most of the rides, though I’ll be stuck watching her ride most of the time this year.
Landon just likes the movement, the animals, and the fact that he can be outside for a whole day alone with me. When it’s just me and one child, I’m able to indulge them all a little more. They get to play games, eat food, and stop at attractions we wouldn’t normally stop at if we were all together.
There’s something magical about skipping school with my kids. I plan to keep this tradition up all the way through high school. I get roughly eighteen years with these kids at home. Eighteen years to build memories before they head out to make memories on their own. I will take every opportunity I can to build memories that last.
I want the kids to know that there’s freedom in life – that you don’t always have to be bound to a schedule, and your time doesn’t have to be dictated by the responsibilities laid out before you.
Life is fun, so why not take a time out now and then to celebrate the fun with the people you love most? Right?!
Happy Wednesday, friends. I’m off to take a step back in time on the doomed old ship with one of my favorite people in the world.
One of the great joys of my job as a writer is the opportunity I have to connect with other writers and creative thinkers. Social media has made this ability to connect nearly seamless, and I find myself grateful and in awe of the people I can interact with on a day to day basis online. Some of those people I’ve even had the privilege to meet in person, and I can now call them friend.
And I have talented friends.
This week I’ve been reading Tsh Oxenreider’s book, Notes From a Blue Bike: The Art of Living Intentionally in a Chaotic World. The book is great, and has given me plenty of pause to stop and think about how to live this life with intention and purpose in a world that sometimes feels like it’s propelling you forward full speed ahead.
In her chapters on education, Tsh points readers to a TED talk by Sir Ken Robinson. This particular TED talk has been seen over 26,000,000 times, and after watching the 18 minute video, I can understand why. He’s funny, engaging, amiable, and he makes a heck of a lot of sense.
It sounds like it would be a terrible public school rant, doesn’t it? Indeed, it’s not. Sir Ken is not out to bash the public school system, so much as to discuss the need for a massive paradigm shift.
I was so enthralled by Robinson’s assertions in this video, that I went on to watch all of his talks posted at TED.com, and each one of them bore the same central message:
Education must feed the spirit, and the energy, and the passion of each individual child so that learning can truly take place.
For some students, school really can be a magical place. The structure, the books, the sense of accomplishment and the broadening horizons of new things known feeds their souls.
And for some, school crushes the spirit.
It’s very difficult to be a parent trying to decide how to best educate her children in this day and age. On the one hand, there are so many options. We aren’t relegated to a one size fits all approach if we don’t want to be. We can choose differently for our kids.
On the other hand, there is so much information being thrown at us about what is best, how children learn, how to cultivate a love for learning, and so much of it is contradictory that we start to feel the smoke billow from our ears as information overload quickly shuts us down.
So what do we do?
I don’t have an answer for you here other than to say, I don’t think anyone can truly claim that they have found the be all, end all solution to education.There is no one right way to educate all children, because they are all different. So how do we choose? How do we guide them down this path of learning that actually gives flight to their natural bent, and speaks to their individual spirit?
I will say that it is very, very hard to do this in a public school setting. That’s not an indictment against the public school. All three of my children are currently publicly educated, and for us, for now, this is what works. But I see the gaps, and I cringe at the holes. I see the cookie cutter mentality, and the severe focus on standardized tests that have crippled our teachers, and stifled education. My job as the parent of public school children is to fill in those gaps when and how I can.
I’d love to hear your thoughts on this matter, and ask that we could do so with respect for one another’s different choices in education. Do you think that schools kill creativity? Do you see gaps in your children’s education and growth as individuals? How do you work to fill in those gaps? What are your challenges as you face the choice of where and how your children should be educated?
As a 20 year old college student living alone in Kiev, Ukraine, I had my fair share of alone time to explore. I loved every second of that independence, though I fear that I gave the Ukrainian couple I was living with a heart attack or five during that semester abroad.
I never said “no” to an opportunity for adventure during that time in my life. I was 20, after all. I was invincible. It never occurred to me that I might be foolish in my free movements from one part of the city to another. On occasion, I was even known to hop a train for a different part of the country, just because someone asked.
Looking back on that time of life life, I shake my head in wonder at my bravery, my naiveté, my seize the day mentality. Where did that come from? And where did that girl go?!
It’s true that adulthood brings with it an awareness of responsibility. I know now that I am, indeed, not invincible. I know now that it is only by God’s good grace, and probably my mother’s unceasing prayers, that I was not physically harmed on the train I took to Prague, when I was forced to room with a horny Iranian born German who tried to climb in bed with me more than once.
It’s grace that I didn’t find myself hurt or worse when I got lost in a back alley section of Prague after dark…alone.
It’s grace that I didn’t get radiation poisoning when I hopped on a train to visit one of the still functioning towns near the abandoned Chernobyl district.
It’s grace that I always managed to find myself with nice, amiable cab drivers when I hailed a ride home after dark because I’d gotten lost wandering the streets of Kiev…again.
At the time, I thought nothing of any of those experiences. It never dawned on me that those were dangerous situations.In fact, after the adventure to Czech Republic, I found a local cafe and emailed my parents, regaling them with my hilarious tales of fighting off the German, being chased by a man trying to sell me hash, and being groped by a drunk man in the dark alley.
“I’m having such an adventure!” I wrote – as if this were just another day at the local park. I still have the email with my mom’s response. It goes like this:
KELLI,
THERE ARE SOME EXPERIENCES THAT ARE BETTER LEFT UNTOLD UNTIL YOU ARE SAFE BACK HOME ON AMERICAN SOIL. CALL US.
MOM
I laugh, now, at that balls-to-the-walls version of myself. She was a trip. I kind of miss her, and yet I’m not sure I would ever take those risks again, even if given the opportunity.
Of course, if I hadn’t risked that trip to Prague and fought off those men, I never would have stood on Charles Bridge and seen the vast hillside that stretched beyond the waters. I never would have been enticed by the array of colors in the fall trees, or the sight of a woman walking a small herd of goats across the hill. I never would have tightened my backpack and started walking toward that hill, and I never would have climbed it.
And if I hadn’t done that, I never would have seen the city of Prague from such an interesting, unique and romantic vantage point.
Sometimes risks are worth it in the long run.
My first born and I discuss college a lot these days. He’s only ten, but he’s got so many questions. He wants to know what it’s going to be like, where he should go, what he should study, if it’s scary.
All I tell him is that I want him to work hard, to trust in his ability to decide where to attend college, to never be afraid to ask his dad’s advice, and to never shy away from something that feels risky.
Then I pray for him, and my other children. I pray that they’ll be confident and brave. I pray that they’ll have the opportunity to explore the world someday. I pray that they will take every chance they get to see God’s creation from a different angle.
I pray they will be wiser than I was, and that they’ll have grace and protection when they make foolish choices.
There’s still a bit of that risky girl buried inside me – the girl who loves the thrill of adventure, and the independence that comes with exploring new territory. She escapes in the memories, in my dreams, and in the secret hopes that I have for my children. She’s raising a new generation of risk takers.
Are you an adventure seeker? How do you balance the desire to explore with the need to be responsible?
He woke early, the impending sunrise giving the morning sky just a hint of grey, a sign that life would soon rise and begin the daily dance. He moved through the motions of dressing, then made his way to the kitchen where the smell of coffee greeted him with gentle grace, pushing away some of the sleep that still lingered in his brain.
He wrapped his hands around the hot mug and waited for his brain to catch up to his body. Half a cup of coffee later, he felt ready. He walked to his desk, an old, worn block of wood that he’d sat at for over a decade now and he set the coffee cup down next to the shiny, black typewriter – his pride and joy.
He decided many years ago that his most serious thinking and writing would happen on this typewriter. The clacking of the keys produced a romanticism that spurred more thoughts, more ideas. He couldn’t replicate such creativity on a computer.
With the night sky still fighting against the rising sun, he hit the first key, then the second, until his fingers moved in a rhythm. His brain didn’t have time to question or worry about the intricacies of today’s writing. He simply let the ideas spill out, until the sun shone high, the dewy grass glimmered, and the final drop of coffee had long been drained away.
Only then could his day begin.
In college, I had a professor by the name of Dr. Tom Hanks. True story. He taught an entire class on Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales. It was one of my favorite classes. It nearly did me in, as the whole purpose of the class was to read the book in the original Chaucerian language, memorize large portions of it, and write frequent papers on the different short stories.
But Dr. Hanks made the class fascinating for us all.
He was known to come into class dressed as Chaucer from time to time. When he read the stories to us, they came alive, as the inflection of his voice rose and fell with the beat of this strange language. I’ll never forget the day Dr. Hanks described to us the way he felt when he sat down to write.
“I write because I have to,” he told us one afternoon. “Writing for me is like brushing my teeth. I don’t always enjoy the process, but it is a necessity to get through my day.”
I don’t know if Dr. Hanks actually wrote on a black typewriter or not. I imagine that he did, because the idea of it befits the memory I have of this fascinating man. What I know with certainty, though, is Dr. Hanks ignited in me a passion for the written word unlike anyone I had ever known. He gave me a glimpse into the mind of someone who thrived on creativity.
He, along with one other teacher my senior year at Baylor, sent me away from college with the desire to create.
We all have a spark of creativity buried somewhere inside. Sometimes that spark manifests itself in words, sometimes in numbers. It can be showcased in the kitchen, bubbling over in hot meals, or piled high in decorative treats. The creativity can come out in rhythms and notes, or in the joy that comes from a deep conversation. Creativity can be seen in a painting, in a well decorated home, or in the joy that one finds in Do It Yourself projects.
There is a method to each of our creative minds. Some of us do our best work early in the morning, some prefer the dark quiet of the night. Some sit and let the ideas flow freely, others think and build until the ideas are ready to spill out.
Everyone is creative in some way, shape or form, and it’s that creativity that all comes together to form a world full of color, of innovation, and of beautiful, interesting life – a life designed by the ultimate Creator Himself. What a beautiful thing to behold.
Have you ever considered how you were wired creatively? When do you do your best work, and how do you keep your mind focused on the things that fuel the creative portion of your brain?
This is the final installment in my series of stories from Ukrainian World War II survivors. I leave you with Maria. I first heard Maria’s story as a sixteen year old, while on a mission trip to Kiev, Ukraine. Her story sparked a passion in me to know more – to understand better how this Great War affected the world.
Maria’s story is the one that started it all. My entire life shifted when I heard her retell of the days she was taken to Germany and forced to build artillery for the enemy. Maria was a delightful woman to speak with. Her eyes danced, moving in rhythm with her words. I will forever be grateful to her for entrusting me with her history.
A story I now share with you.
“The morning came when we were to go to the station. My sister Anna and I left together. My older brothers were already gone, fighting on the front for our safety. Papa was very ill so he could not accompany us.
When we arrived [the Nazis] forced us all to stand in line for hours while they walked around screaming at us. Finally, we were inspected and separated onto different trains.
When I reached the front of the line, a German woman grabbed my hands and inspected them. She did the same to Anna. I found out later that they were looking for young girls with large hands who would be good at physical labor. I guess my hands were what she wanted because as soon as she looked at them, she pulled me away and pushed me onto a train by myself. Anna was sent to another train. I thought I would die of grief and fear that day.
I was only fourteen years old when they sent me away to work in an underground chemical plant. There were many other children there with me. Our job was to fill German bullets with gunpowder all day long. During that time, I never saw the light of day.
We worked long hours with very little food. For some reason the other children in the camp turned to me for support and protection. I don’t know why I was given so much responsibility, but I felt that I could not let them down. I soon became very angry as our captivators cut back our meals from two per day to only one per day. And worse, the food was often infested with bugs. We were all ill, and some children even died. I had to do something.
I refused to work one morning and, using broken German, I demanded better treatment. Instead, the two officers in charge beat me very badly. It’s a miracle that I survived.
I woke up days later. A young woman washed my face and as I began to stir, she sang to me. Her voice was beautiful, and I thought she must be an angel. It turns out she was a young German nurse who took pity on me, and had been nursing me to health.
I was sent to a textile factory after I recovered. This was a much nicer job. I was given regular meals and the work was easier. But I didn’t stay there long. After only a few months I was transferred once again, this time to a tank plant. Here I helped assemble German tanks. This was terrible work for a sixteen year old girl.
A few months after I arrived, word came that the war was over. The next day, I tasted freedom for the first time in two years. I walked out of the terrible camp with great joy, and also great fear. I didn’t know where I was or how to get home.
After a few days of wandering, I came to a train station. As a refugee, I had to sneak onto a train just before it left. I rode wherever I could find room. Sometimes, I could not find room inside a train car, I and was forced to hang on to the rails outside the car for hours.
After two years of near starvation and hard labor, I finally arrived home. It was many weeks before I found my family again. And I found them quite different.
My brothers were all killed in the war. My father had been sent to Babi Yar (a killing ditch outside Kiev, where the Germans killed over 33,000 Jews in three days). He survived this awful place, but not without emotional pain that haunted him. The life went out from his eyes. He tried desperately to continue to be strong for us girls, but he felt defeated. He missed my brothers very much.
Anna survived her years in Germany as well. She had a better time than I did. She was a servant in the house of a wealthy family. She was treated with some kindness though she was often scorned and abused verbally.
Those were very hard years for our country. No one was untouched by tragedy. Everyone lost a loved one. But we survived and we persevered. And now I am an old woman, but I’m happy. I have a wonderful family, and I am always loved.”
