Still Here

It's been a while.  I feel like I should say 'hi' and re-introduce myself.

Hi, I'm Ruth and I'm a blogger.  I blog about stuff.  Life.  Adoption.  Parenting.  Faith.  Kids.  Schooling at home.  Whatever else that gets into my head that I can't get rid of other than on paper.

I get into these non-blogging funks every once in a while and I am somewhat at a loss to explain them.  I rarely have advance notice that my brain is going to shut down...it just suddenly hits me when I sit down to do a little writing that I simply can't.  And then I can't even think about blogging for a while - it just irritates me.  It usually takes a little concerned prompting from a friend or two (thanks Tammy and Missy) for me to get back in the game.

And so here I am.  I'm sitting at a local Starbucks with one of my favourite hot beverages (cinnamon dolche latte).  And I just polished off a tiny edible treat too - one of those miniature salted caramel squares that are just so... divine.

It's not my usual night off, but life has interfered with my usual Thursday evening this week and so I am taking tonight instead, at Geoff's prompting.

I have so many things percolating in my brain these days that I don't know where to start.  My inner life feels a little unhinged and I wish I had about a week to sit in silence so that I could process it all.

I've noted already recently what the two primary topics are that swirl about in my brain day and night...but here's a refresher.

First, I'm stewing on Parenting Issues - and here I'm not talking about parenting kids with issues; I'm talking about my interest in developmental (rather than behavioural) parenting and the impact that this has, and might have, on our daily lives.  I'm taking an intensive course at the moment to further my knowledge about developmental psychology and parenting; I'm about a month in on a six month course.  And it's helping me figure things out but, wow, it's intense and turns on its head most of the ways in which we parents are most familiar with parenting.  It's a counter-culture approach that is challenging many notions I've had about parenting and the roots are beginning to furrow deeper as I become more immersed.  Perhaps the hardest part of it all is that it's not a how-to kind of thing to learn as much as it is an approach to understanding and interacting with children.  People love to ask me questions about it and ask what I'd do in such-and-such a situation and I just can't respond adequately (and am beginning to not even try) because for everything I say or think on a subject, about a zillion other bits come to mind.  There's just not a manual for this stuff...though heaven knows I wish there were!

Second, I'm wracked with incessant thoughts about schooling the kids.  I'm changing...in ways that terrify me...though maybe not quite as much as they did even two weeks ago.  I'm challenging my own assumptions about what school is, what learning is vs school, what our schooling priorities are and should be, how to align more closely the kinds of kids I hope to usher into adulthood someday with the ways in which we spend out days today.   All I'm clear on at this point is that something's gonna be changing...something already is changing...mostly me.

I have much more to say on these subjects but it's gonna have to wait on my brain.  I just hope my brain's up to the challenge.

In the meantime, it's good to be back.  I may not be back quite as often as usual for the next while, but I'm back nonetheless.  Hang in with me if you will...I have a feeling it's gonna be an interesting ride with no defined outcome.