“He knows these words. You can build on this. I really wanted it to work.”
“I know. You did a great job!” I reassured Ms. Alice.
That evening, my mom came over to our house. She and I stayed up late, talking.
“Everything happened to bring you to this moment. Don’t worry about anything,” she told me.
“Really?”
“Yes, that’s how God works. He brings you to a place you’re supposed to be.”
Thorin busy at work
Photo by Thorin
CHAPTER EIGHT
Funny How Life Happens
When I explained to Thorin we were homeschooling, he had two questions.
“I call you Kari?”
I laughed. I wasn’t expecting that question.
“If that’s important to you, sure,” I said.
“Thanks you, Mom.”
“Who the teacher?” he asked.
I wasn’t expecting that question either. I didn’t see myself as the teacher but more like a coworker. I had no frame of reference for this new model of our relationship.
“No one is the teacher?” I said.
“No! Who the teacher?”
“We could both be the teacher?”
“No!”
“We are both the student,” I offered.
“No! Who the teacher!” he screamed it.
I realized public education is a potent force, particularly when removed.
“You need to learn reading, writing, and math. I have to figure out how to help you by learning how to help you. So we’re both learning.”
Thorin didn’t have a response.
“Thorin, I am not sure what I am doing, yet.”
“No!”
“I am learning, too. I don’t want to be a teacher. I want us to be a team.”
Again, Thorin didn’t respond.
“Can we be a team? Can we try?”
“Okay, Kari.”
Luckily, Maine had several resources for homeschooling: Christian-based and secular organizations, religious and secular homeschooling cooperatives, Facebook groups offering classes, fieldtrips, and group playdates. I learned there were homeschoolers and unschoolers—and those in between. I felt excited and overwhelmed.
We briefly checked out one of the homeschool cooperatives where families join together for classes and social time. Everyone was pleasant and laid back. I needed pleasant and structured. This was a huge leap for us. I wanted a safety net.
I discovered a nonprofit Christian ministry, HOME, dedicated to supporting homeschools in Maine. They didn’t care if we were religious. They also had an informational workshop for new homeschoolers the next week.
It took place at a church an hour away. When we arrived, we found a seat in a pew in the back. The presentation was already going, so I started taking notes. After the speaker finished, he asked for questions. He answered some, and his wife, who was seated at the reception table in the back of the church, answered others.
I whispered to Ward, “Why isn’t she up there, too?”
“He’s the head of the household.”
“Really?” I wasn’t entirely convinced that was the accurate explanation, but Ward was having fun with the idea. They didn’t care if we were religious, but, apparently, that didn’t stop us from stereotyping them.
He poked me in the ribs. “Now you’re going to have to start listening to me,” he whispered.
I snorted, “I don’t think so.”
“Shhh, woman!”
After the meeting, Ward and I introduced ourselves to Ed and Kathy, the couple who ran HOME. “I emailed you about visiting for a curriculum consult,” I said.
“We’d love to have you. Just let us know when,” said Kathy.
A week later, we visited their bookstore. Kathy asked Thorin questions about what he liked. She asked me how he learned best.
“I would say Thorin’s a visual and kinesthetic learner.”
She turned to Thorin. “You like to learn by doing, Thorin?”
“I do.”
Kathy’s energy was calm and confident. She suggested Thorin go outside with her grandchildren and Ed. Ward asked if he could go, too.
“Kathy, I don’t know what I’m going to do,” I confessed.
“That’s okay. This is time for you to learn, too. You’re going to figure it out, and what’s best is that you get to do it with your child.”
“You always knew this is what you were going to do.”
“Always.”
“I didn’t. School was so painful for Thorin.”
“I hear that a lot.”
“I really need help.”
“That’s why we’re here.”
While everyone outside helped load up firewood, Kathy suggested some math and writing texts. She cautioned me to buy only a few things and told me that I didn’t have to figure it all out now.
On the first day of homeschooling, I set up an area on the dining room table for Thorin and me to sit. I thought we could look at the curriculum then do a couple pages of math. I was chipper and prepared. I should have also noticed it looked a lot like school.
“Yay, homeschooling!” I said calling to Thorin.
He came in the room wearing underpants and his Thor cape.
“Go get clothes on, please,” I said enthusiastically.
“No, tanks.”
“Please, go get clothes on,” I repeated with somewhat less enthusiasm.
“No,” Thorin said as he sat down.
Why did I think he had to wear clothes that morning? I decided because he couldn’t call the shots. Look at everything I was doing for him! Where was that coming from?
Without thinking I said, “You have to have clothes on!” I didn’t sound like a coworker; I sounded like a dictator.
Thorin ended up staying in his room all day in his underpants and cape. I cried into a pillow in the bedroom. I couldn’t understand what was happening.
I told Ward when he got home. He reassured me that it would get better.
The next morning, Thorin came out naked.
“Okay, go get clothes on, now!”
“No, no, no!”
Yuck, I didn’t want him sitting on anything.
“Yes!”
“Funny! No!”
“I’ll show you funny! Get in your room!”
“Good!” he said and went stomping off.
The next day was the same. Between the crying and yelling, which now both of us were doing, I was exhausted. I wondered if we had made a colossal mistake, so I called my mom. When I told her about Thorin’s nudity, she revealed a surprising bit of family history.
“Your father was a closet nudist. He said it made him feel free. I made him carry a dish cloth around the house.”
“What?”
“Your father liked nothing better than being buck naked.”
“Okay, please stop.”
“Maybe this isn’t going to work,” she
