May 28, 2020

🎈Freeschoolin' Birthday Fail?

🎈Happy Birthday Hope!🎈

Hope is officially ten years old now which means we've been unschooling/Freeschoolin' for 7 whole years! What an amazing adventure it has been so far... We had an awesome day planned for Hope complete with a birthday treasure hunt, a brand new bike and an organic cake with very pink icing. But, unexpectedly, it started out with big feelings and tears. Hope has been reverse cycling so it was a little hard to get time to prepare all the birthday plans. Also this week was challenging with my son's deathaversary which I talked about in last week's blog - Cupcakes for Skylar. Hope had asked for her bday to be a secret and up until the afternoon before the big day, Jaze and I had mastered keeping it from her. We stopped at Nicholyn Farms, a favourite local farm store and waited for Jaze to get some treats for Hope's celebration. Upon entering, Jaze mentioned Hope was turning ten to the owner, who promptly and sweetly came to wish Hope a happy early birthday, with proper social distancing of course. Obviously this spilled the beans on keeping the day hidden, but we laughed and agreed that it must of been the universe's plan that she know her big day was coming. This meant that she was excited going to sleep that morning and woke after only 4 hours. I was not ready. Nothing was decorated, iced, wrapped, set up. Hope walked in ( we camped out that night in the tent ) and was surprised but not the way I had hoped. Her face fell and I broke. It was another big fear of mine come true; to not be ready for one of my kids birthdays.

I was ill prepared for this emotional tidal wave that hit me and I sobbed out how terrible a mother I was. That Hope deserved better. And of course, my empathic little sweetheart of a girl broke too. Not because she didn't have a birthday ready for her but because I was so sad. Which made me feel so guilty because I had caused her pain, not joy, on the day I wanted to celebrate her. It was a hard frame of mind to work myself out of for so many reasons; I was lost and felt all was lost with me. But through the tears and beautiful hugs Hope offered we figured out a plan to "fix" things and enjoy a good day after all. The guilt of regret over mistakes with my kids is the hardest feeling I've ever had to rise above but with love, to myself as well, all things are possible. We had cool treats on the porch, talked and joked, and then I set up the treasure hunt we had planned. Jaze helped me speed decorate which admittedly was much less than I had originally designed, but it was all there was time for so we went with it.

Hope opened her present (the other 2 haven't arrived in the mail yet) and then followed the drawn and written clues to find her treats/presents which finished with a new bike in her favourite colour hidden in a storage shed. She rode it gleefully and then relaxed into some roleplay with toys.

We enjoyed organic hot dogs cooked and eaten by the fire and organic birthday cake with pink raspberry icing alight with 10 candles.

She was happy and didn't recall the stress of earlier like I did. It's STILL fresh for me, a reminder of the strength I'd like to build to prevent future breakdowns. I've come so far, I can't stop now trying to be the best parent possible for my kids.

This Week

Aside from Hope's birthday, it was our last week helping out with the horses at Earth Valley Organics so Hope decided to do some grooming! Spring flowers brought a sweet gift to me from Hope which I was of course elated to receive. There was lots of bike riding, animal spotting and outdoor play. Hope and Jaze put up our tent together so we could camp out and we enjoyed delicious meals by the fire. Of course Hope has been drawing and singing, there hav been lengthy team Minecraft playing with Jaze, and also an independent paint session (more on that to come...).