Today is the autumn equinox, which Old English speakers called emniht. Emniht is itself a shortening of the longer form, efennihte, though I am only aware of one instance of the longer form (in an Anglo-Saxon abridgement of De Natura Rerum by the venerable Bede). This is the official shift from the long days and short nights of summer to the approach of winter. From there will be more dark than light, and more night that day, until the solstice, or sunn-stede.

The seasons change slowly, gradually, almost creeping upon us without our notice. But a few weeks ago my children remarked that it was now dark when they went to bed, and dark when they got up to catch the bus. The change is now marked enough for them to notice. It's a time of transitions. The weather gets cooler (please, please let it get cooler), the days get shorter, the children return to school. Or at least start doing school work.

See there's one transition that went very poorly for us this year. I homeschooled my oldest till the middle of his 3rd grade year. It was very difficult and while I loved the planning and the research, I struggled to keep us on schedule and get through each day with everything accomplished. In retrospect this likely had something to do with the two toddlers I also had to manage who demanded a lot of my time (I was also in grad school but that doesn't count, does it?). But at some point in the middle of his third grade year, I realized he was kind of a twerp. He was smart, funny, talkative, and his world revolved around him. It seemed like maybe he needed some peers to show him he was really just another kid in the world. It wouldn't break him, but it might reorient his perspective on things. My husband confirmed my suspicions the same week it occured to me when he suggested Edmond be in school for a bit.

So I sent him to school. Then I sent his younger brother to kindergarten and first grade. Then I sent his little sister to preschool. And this spring I started to wonder if maybe the school had acheived what we needed from it. My kids had recognized their place in the pecking order of life, and now I missed them. I missed reading books and curricula, planning activities, and knowing what they were learning. In fact I found it very difficult to discover from them or their teachers what exactly they were learning at all, after first grade. In first grade their math and reading come along so dramatically that it's obvious what they're learning, but after that it is all a mystery. In 6th grade, my oldest boy's year, I couldn't even get a response from the teacher asking a question about a school supply he needed, and didn't expect any extra communication from her. Lord knows teachers are busy enough without the parents quizzing them endlessly.

In the end, I know that the teacher are doing their absolute best, and that the school system continues to turn out competent humans (albeit ones that use words like "skibbidy" and "rizzler"). I am grateful that the schools are there for the vast majority of people who need them. It is a tremendous gift and privilege to be able to keep my children at home and teach them myself. I love being with my kids (they're fun people!) and I love learning with them. After putting my kids in school with some reluctance this year, the first two weeks were awful. In addition to the dark mornings waiting for the bus, which comes much earlier than before due to the ongoing driver shortages, the kids were coming home cranky, tired, and rebellious. I felt like I had to undo whatever school (not the school itself but the process of going to school all day) had done to them. Even the hours I had with them were spoilt by this, and I was resentful of them instead of enjoying them.

So I took the two oldest out. My two-year-old is home with me all day anyways, and he immediately changed once his big brothers were home. Instead of following me and clinging to me every moment they were at school, he plays independently, almost as if their presence gives him the security to play without worrying where Mom is all the time. My oldest has been so fun to read and discuss work with. He's doing pre-Algebra, which led to my favorte math as a kid, and I am really enjoying reviewing basic concepts with him. He also goes to the school every day for band and choir. My seven-year-old is thriving on challenges that suit his mathematical and systematic brain and there are some challenges with reading and writing that we can work through together.

My daughter continues to go to school. I take her now, and while I hate wasting the gas while the bus still runs by every morning, the extra 30 minutes of sleep are life-changing for her. She thrives on praise from not-Mom people, and her artistic soul needs the crafts and activities I don't even know how to provide. Kindergarten is the best and she's living her best life with all her little friends at school. Maybe next year I'll homeschool her too. Maybe not. Each year, each child, I make a decision that is best for them that year.

So we are transitioning. We are transitioning into fall, into school, into being a homeschool family and a public school family, into everyone being an age they've never been before and into a life we've never lived before. Every day we wake up and get to choose again who we are and what we do and what we believe and where we're going.