Adult-ing is Hard

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Recently, in church, our pastor was talking about the statistics around depression.  The statistics for 19-24 year old's is particularly troubling, and my own precious 19yo leaned over and said one profound phrase "because adult-ing is hard, Mum".

It's been so long now since I became an adult that I don't really think of things as always being hard.  In fact, there's plenty about a life that is fun and fulfilling and precious and wonderful.  In fact, I don't remember coming to adulthood with a perception that the shift from childhood lack of responsibility to personal responsibility was overwhelming.   I got my first full-time job at 18 and I married at 19.  My husband and I have been navigating my adult life together ever since - nearly 25 years.

Things haven't been so straightforward for Miss Sunshine, and neither will be for Miss Mischief, it seems.  We've had to teach Miss Sunshine about the questions she needs to ask and the steps required for the things she needs to do and accomplish and complete.  Getting her enrolled in University was a major achievement.  I didn't think it was so hard - fill in the form, wait to hear, figure out the enrolment process and off we go.  Not so with her.  There were trips to the campus.  There were trips to the bookshop with questions about booklists because things weren't clear from the websites.  We've navigated choosing a car and we're about to do tax for the first time.  I thought you just got online, downloaded the form and got on with it.  Apparently I have to sit with her to fill it out.  And let's not talk about dealing with Centrelink, because that's on a whole other planet of pain.  It's taken nine months to get to the point where I can let Miss Sunshine walk into one of their offices without complete and utter terror.

We're about to get ourselves another baby adult in the house in less than two weeks.  Last night I sat with her to fill out her University preferences.  Oh the pain!  This is the child who doesn't know what she really wants to do, beyond interning at church for a year.  But these VTAC preferences have to be submitted in order for offers to be forthcoming and deferences to be possible.  It was painful to watch her read every. single. word. of the online form.  Meanwhile I was skimming through beside her saying "Click no".  Click yes.  Come on...it shouldn't be this hard".  And it shouldn't.  But somehow it is.

When we were in Malaysia recently I was telling a friend there how we've had to hand-hold our baby adult into what it means to do all the adult things.  Their response?  Let them sink or swim. These are people who have no choice but to send their children overseas for a University education.  So they send them to England and their children have to figure it out for themselves.  Because they have no choice.  Because Mum and Dad are half a world away and can't actually come and save them.  I simply can't imagine it.  Miss Sunshine would have been curled, in a foetal position, murmuring to herself on the floor if we'd let her sink or swim.

And then there are those statistics around young adults and depression.

So we're walking our baby adults through the transition from being a kid, where Mum and Dad take care of everything, to being an adult where they have to make all the things happen.  We're dog-paddling our way to an all-out freestyle stroke that feels strong and smooth and confident.

It's hard being the parent of young adults who are sensible, amazing people in every way, but seem paralysed by the responsibility and freedoms that are theirs.  Harder than it was in my family, in my generation.  We all left home at 19.

Sunshiny Spring Sunday

I wonder what your family does when the Spring sunshine begins to show itself and warm the Earth up a little?  We're getting a little of that now that winter is officially over.  I say "officially" because the weather can't really decide if that's true.  Yesterday was one of those early-spring warm sunshiny days that you long for all winter long, so we spent the afternoon down at Sorrento.

It's a long drive from here and we had to convince Miss Sunshine that she'd rather be with us than shopping on her own.  But we managed all of that, even with Miss Mischief clocking up her learner-driver hours on the way down.

We had afternoon tea at the famous Vanilla Slice place - affectionately called a "snot block" by many Aussies.  I never understood that reference, but their vanilla slices were particularly good.  My warmed pear and almond cake was oh so delicious.  I realised afterwards I didn't get a photo of it!

We wandered down to the foreshore area and watched the Queenscliffe Ferry arrive, unload and head back out again.  Everyone headed out along a little teensy pier.  I did not.  I do not like piers so much that I would risk myself along a rickety-looking version, the floor of which is full of gaps and sea can be seen between the boards.  I like my piers solid, large and preferably with bitumen over the base!  Like the pier used for the ferry!  Dh came back and said this pier was barely standing and the railings wonky.  Miss Sunshine thought as long as it wasn't acting like a swinging bridge (her greatest fear) everything was fine.

Whenever country folk like us head down to the beach there is a mandatory fish-and-chips-by-the-beach dinner involved.  We had no picnic rugs so we put the back of the Land Cruiser down and sat there to enjoy the beachy view, and our dinner

And then we had some dinner guests arrive.  They were pretty determined too.  Not quite to the point of flying past us and into the car, but close.  They were certainly excited by the eventuality that we could not eat all of it!

After a long drive home we watched an episode of "The Newsroom" (we're into the final season, *sigh*) and headed to bed.

Perfect Sunday.

Lessons for the Classroom from Nehemiah

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I am just loving having another read through Nehemiah with 'IF Equip'.  I am constantly amazed at what we can take away from the Word, even when it looks like there's nothing to learn.  Like lists of people who were counted in a census after the walls were completed.

Nehemiah is my constant companion for my class devotions at the moment; he and Abraham.  These two guys are two of my favourite characters in the Bible.  Their stories always speak anew in whatever circumstance I find myself.  And I've been sharing their stories and what I'm learning with my students.

Lessons like:

• God goes ahead of us and smoothes the way before us.
• We all have a task to do.
• We might feel like we're just working on our own bit of the wall....but when we do our bit and the person next to us does theirs, the job gets done.  We work shoulder-to-shoulder and we need each other to get it done.
• We will always have opposition....stay on your wall!
• We are so important to God he names us in His Book of Life individually, just like he named people specifically in the Bible.
• When we obey God's laws we experience far greater joy in our lives.
• Speaking out the Word of the Lord in public is powerful.

We love sharing stories, in our classroom.  I share mine - my kids share theirs.  And I ask them to think about how they can apply what the hear with questions like:  "What would it look like in our classroom/playground/friendships/behaviour?"

I adore being in a school where we get to share what we're learning about God and how we put skin on that.  The most exciting part of my day!

The Life-Rhythms That Never Change

I have been making school lunches for 15 years.  Fifteen years of getting up before the kids and getting their sandwiches made in the peace of a silent early-morning house.  When Miss Sunshine was in Prep (first year of school here) I remember getting six months and thinking "I'm going to be making school lunches for the rest of my life".  Well...15 years down the track I only have another three to go before they're all finished school.  That just seems a little bit wrong!

I was making lunches this week for the two still at school.  There are so many days when I really wish this wasn't part of the every-day deal, yet this week I found a small measure of comfort that there is in something that is constant in your life when everything else is changing.  Even when your lunch-making routines change slowly, they are still there.

Our lunches right now consist of wholegrain wraps (from Aldi) topped with Chipotle aioli (from Costco), grated cheese, sliced chicken and mixed salad leaves.  They get rolled, chopped in half and boxed in Tupperware sandwiches boxes.  I have a stack of these and the kids have two colours each to claim as theirs.  They know which one to pick up when they pack their bags.  I put the grated cheese directly on whatever the mayo is at the time, because the cheese sticks and doesn't fall out.  It was a whole thing!  Cheese falling out just doesn't work that great.

On the days when there is nothing left to make wraps with, or I lose the plot and refuse to make another wrap for the week I head down to the bakery and buy Hawaiian pizza rolls or some other savoury scroll thing.

IF Equip study on Nehemiah....

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I have been using IF Equip for my morning devotions for a few months now, and I love it.  All the other daily devotionals I've used seem to have a focus on the commentary of the writer, rather than the passage of Scripture being considered.  IF Equip flips that focus so that that the Scripture is the main thing.  And the commentary is in the form of a 2-minute video clip.  Not to share stories that vaguely link to the text, but to discuss how the text is impacting their understanding of God.

I have learnt to slow down in the text and use my critical literacy skills to think more deeply about what I am reading.  I journal often.  I never used to do that.  I can dive into the comments and read others' thoughts.  Or not.  I was doing that, but I feel like my time is so limited at the moment that I've been skipping it.  Also, because I'm doing this about 12 hours after its posted I come in on the tail end when the conversation is kind of over.  Time zone issues!

I have always really struggled to figure out this daily quiet time thing.  Yet my Dad was always such a great role model.  I have found that I am a breakfast-time reader.  I will read pretty much anything in front of me during breakfast.   Because I'm a slow learner on some things I finally figured out that breakfast time was a perfect time for me to sit with the Word and ponder it.  Right now there is no one else up and about when I'm having breakfast so the house is beautifully quiet.

The study on the Book of Nehemiah ... A Call to Restore... starts on Monday.  Well.  It's Monday here now, so it starts tomorrow.  I don't know, you'll have to figure it out for your time zone.  But for me, tomorrow morning it'll be waiting in my inbox.

Join me?

Best Uni Assignment Ever

Miss Sunshine was recently invited to accept an Early Entry into her target degree from the Associate Degree she began in February.  After a flurry of early-semester withdrawals and re-enrollments she's now all settled into the big-girl version of University study and is well on her way to becoming a Prep-Year 10 teacher.  This is the result of complete indecision on her part.  Rather than choosing now, whether she wants to teach in Primary or Secondary, she's studying to be qualified in both.  She can choose where she ends up later.  I was never so uncertain.  The younger the better!

To that end she is taking up Health as one of her Secondary methods and the timing of it all is just completely brilliant.  Her semester-long assignment requires her to identify a habit that could be healthier and enacting a plan to change the habit for the better.  She decided on eating healthier.  So she has to plan our menu, help me shop (that's my two cents worth!) and then sort out who's doing what on which nights.  I just show up at the supermarket with the money and she makes the rest of it all happen.  She planned on fruit salad for some of her breakfasts, so I suggested she just make a huge container to keep in the fridge - everyone got to sneak a bit here and there through the week.  She had also planned on a roasted vegetable salad for some of her lunches - again, she made more than enough so we shared that too.

You know what?  I can't go ahead and plan or shop for this week till she's available.  Am I sad about this?  Nooooo.  Someone else planning something for me?  Yes please!

Now, if I could get her interested in sourcing some more healthy baking recipes Mr Busy would be all set and we could enjoy something sweet without adding to our winter insulation!!

On Being Disconnected

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Life here Beyond My Picket Fence is at full tilt.  Things in the classroom are feeling more settled - for me, and for the kids.  My own kids are valiantly holding up the dinner end of the day like the complete and utter champions they are.  Despite being busy and tired and getting home later than I have ever done since.....well....ever, I am discovering there is one major downside to working full-time:  being disconnected from your people.

We had parent-teacher interviews for Miss Mischief the other night.  Year 12's have them earlier than everyone else, because they're nearly finished with their coursework for the year.  And as we sat with each of her teachers I realised how much I miss my tribe.  We had to catch up with each other before we could catch up about Miss Mischief.  I've missed that I can't just pop into the Library and chat with my very dear friend, who is the Library Tech.  And I can just have a spur-of-the-moment cuppa with my friend up the road, or have a quick five-minute chat in the car park after school.  And a weekday breakfast with my book club gals is now off the table.  I just feel a bit disconnected, and I'm not sure how to go about getting that back.  I desperately need my tribe.  They are my go-to people when things are great, and not great and everything in between.  They are the people we pop in on spontaneously when we have a couple of hours to kill.  The people we have dinner with.  The people we camp with.  The people we celebrate our family accomplishments with.  We all need a tribe to belong to.  We have had a period of time when we were practically tribe-less and it was a pretty lonely kind of place to be.

But how does one keep connected to their tribe when their days are full in a place that is away from their tribe?