Everyday Educator - Summer Rhythms
00:00:00.000 | Well, hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of Everyday Educator. We are so excited
00:00:09.860 | because today we're going to be talking all about summer rhythms. And we know that right
00:00:14.420 | now community is either done for you or getting ready to be done in the next couple of days.
00:00:19.300 | But we want to encourage you to make sure that you stay connected to one another. And
00:00:23.380 | if you want to find out more about that, of course, you can learn more about being connected
00:00:26.700 | in community at classicalconversations.com. So definitely go there. For today, we have a
00:00:32.140 | special guest, Camila Carter. Hey, Camila. Hello. Camila has been on. We're so excited, too.
00:00:39.820 | She's been on the Everyday Educator podcast and the Blessings in Motherhood podcast. So if you have not
00:00:45.040 | heard her backstory, any other shows with her, go check those out after you listen to this one.
00:00:51.360 | And Lisa, of course, is here with me today as well. Hey, Lisa.
00:00:54.960 | Hey, Delise. Good to be with you again. So excited to talk about this today. So like I said,
00:01:01.200 | today's show is all about summer rhythms. And we're going to actually break this show down into a couple
00:01:07.180 | of different categories. We are going to talk about education and what it looks like to continue
00:01:12.260 | learning. But we're also going to talk about what it looks like in the household, maybe focusing on the
00:01:17.180 | spiritual aspect of your life and even exploring outside of your house during the summer.
00:01:22.400 | As I was preparing for this episode, I thought about that verse that says,
00:01:27.960 | teach us to number our days that we might gain a heart of wisdom. And I don't know about you guys,
00:01:34.100 | but at my church, as you walk down the hall in the children's ministry, there are these
00:01:41.340 | shadow boxes and they're full of pom-poms. And there is a shadow box for every week of your child's life.
00:01:50.360 | So as you walk down the hall, right, you can see the pom-poms going down and they say,
00:01:57.080 | you know, it's about a thousand weeks that you get with your kids. And I've heard so many conflicting
00:02:03.880 | thoughts about that idea of kind of like numbering the days of your parenting, numbering the weeks of
00:02:09.820 | your parenting. And I think it's easy for us to think of that as a negative thing. But when I look at the
00:02:15.780 | word, he says it's a good thing because it can cause you to gain a heart of wisdom. What do you guys think
00:02:22.220 | about that? Do you think of your time with your children as fleeting or as something to savor?
00:02:28.680 | You know, when I was in the throes of little kids at home, motherhood, I did not think,
00:02:39.200 | oh, I only have this many days. Some days, really being honest, some days I was like,
00:02:46.280 | I can live through this day and it will be over. And so it felt like there were just a plethora of days.
00:02:54.540 | It felt like there was going to be plenty of time. But as my children got older, time seemed to go
00:03:00.520 | faster. And I got more and more intimately aware how few days or weeks or summers I had left. I can
00:03:10.900 | remember as the girls moved into high school, beginning to think, well, I only have three more
00:03:15.860 | summers. I only have two more summers. This is the last summer. And I remember when my daughter,
00:03:21.380 | my older daughter went off to college, I remember just saying to her, I want you to be prepared.
00:03:28.000 | It's never going to be the same. You're going to come home in the summer, but it's never going to
00:03:33.320 | be the same again. And she was just like, what are you even talking about? It is going to be the same.
00:03:38.460 | And I just, because I wanted her to, I wanted to caution her because when she was getting ready to
00:03:43.780 | come home after her freshman year, I didn't want her to mourn that it wasn't the same anymore.
00:03:49.120 | I wanted her to know that I had already realized it wasn't going to be the same.
00:03:53.220 | But I think that in the positive sense that you were saying, Delise, it does help us to think,
00:04:01.440 | wow, I have this many moments, this many occasions, this many vacations, this many Bible schools
00:04:11.740 | to celebrate with my children. And I'm going to make sure that I savor them because I now know on
00:04:19.180 | the back end, you will be missing them. Yeah, that's good. Yeah. I'm so glad that Lisa went first
00:04:26.580 | because I have been struck recently by this thought of seasons, right? When I've been in the same
00:04:37.680 | season, so to speak, for so long. And now my first has launched and my kids came really quickly, so
00:04:45.520 | they're going to leave just as quickly. Yes. Allegedly. But, and I keep telling myself, this is a good
00:04:54.460 | thing. Like you get to go to somewhere new. Now you get to experience, Lord willing, being a grandmother
00:05:01.480 | with David as a granddad. And like, are we going to travel to see the kids? Are the kids going to come
00:05:06.760 | here? It's going to be something totally new. And I have been just trying to like, you know, think
00:05:13.000 | forward while still appreciating this because I think that a lot of times when you see women that
00:05:20.160 | are holding on to the previous seasons, it starts to get ugly. And I just want to honor the Lord in
00:05:26.940 | every season. So I'm right at this changing, so to speak. This is a time in real seasons where everybody
00:05:33.680 | gets sick. And that's what I told myself spiritually is when the seasons start changing, this is when
00:05:39.160 | you get sick. And so I've just been really trying to have my heart be glad that it's about to be
00:05:47.740 | different for me. Is this going to look different? And so I don't know. I think that the, I still have
00:05:55.580 | people here and then I have one child that's gone. So my life is already very different, right? How do
00:06:03.520 | you, how do you appropriately helicopter mom, somebody who lives several states away? I'm not
00:06:08.500 | doing great. I do still send him random texts. Like a couple of weeks ago, I sent him a text. Are you
00:06:14.760 | getting fat? And he just called me. Are you okay? What's happening, mom? What are you doing right now?
00:06:21.980 | Where are you coming from? I was just, I don't know. You just keep, every time I call you, you're eating
00:06:26.480 | out. You're eating ice cream. You're eating boba. You're like, so I just need to, are you working out? Are you doing the
00:06:32.680 | things? So anyway, I just have been very struck by this. So it's very good to hear
00:06:37.880 | from the next season. This is still good. It's still, it's still different. It's still changing,
00:06:44.540 | but it's still, um, still desirable, right? This is the first time I saw those marbles that I saw the
00:06:51.080 | marbles. Oh yeah. Yes. Oh my word. David had to talk me down. I was like, please don't say those
00:06:58.280 | things to me. Stop. We're running out. We don't, we're starting over. And so I just, I panicked,
00:07:06.360 | but the Lord does tell us to number our days. And so it is a good thing. And I've just been really
00:07:11.700 | trying to focus on, um, his goodness now and that in the future, I'll be able to look back
00:07:18.340 | and see his goodness. Oh, so true. Camille is so true. I remember thinking like when my girls were
00:07:26.240 | growing up, like I sort of mourned as they grew from preschooler to elementary to a little bit older to
00:07:35.820 | I mourned it because I loved every little stage, but then somebody would say, well, would you go back
00:07:42.680 | to those days? And my knee jerk was, well, yes, I would. But actually I love who they are now. And I love
00:07:50.160 | the relationship we have now. And so I really held hard to that. Um, I will find something beautiful.
00:07:59.780 | The Lord will show me the next beautiful vista. Like this closing of a curtain is not darkness. It's just
00:08:08.380 | time to open a new curtain. It's going in a new direction. And, and I will tell you, Camilla, I will tell
00:08:15.540 | you. Grandparenting. Oh my gosh. It's the best. It is the best. It is like having your kids be little
00:08:26.620 | again, um, without as much of the, it all rest on me worry. Okay. Cause it doesn't all rest on me.
00:08:34.800 | I get to play with this little person. My grandson told me the other day, Lolly, you are my best buddy
00:08:41.540 | ever. And so I get to be the best buddy ever and not do all the other things that aren't as much fun.
00:08:50.620 | Yes. It's great.
00:08:51.900 | For real.
00:08:52.340 | Yes.
00:08:53.120 | Ah, that's so great.
00:08:55.440 | Yeah. It's exciting. Yeah. I remember like five years ago being like, I, I met my husband when he was
00:09:00.420 | 19. And I remember being like, I think that's inappropriate and I am against it. I don't know.
00:09:06.460 | Stop. Whoa. Right. And now my son will be 19 this year. And I'm like, he could meet her. That's fine.
00:09:13.460 | This is appropriate. We can do that. Yeah.
00:09:16.820 | I'll have to do it with this.
00:09:18.220 | I'll allow it.
00:09:20.240 | I'll allow it.
00:09:21.600 | There you go.
00:09:23.800 | So much to look forward to. I love it. And you know, today, so I love that we started talking about
00:09:30.620 | seasons and now we're going to hone in really tightly on one specific season, which is the
00:09:34.980 | summertime. And you know, you, you never know how many, how many summers you're going to get with
00:09:40.520 | your kids, which while it matters on the other hand, it doesn't matter. All you need to look at
00:09:44.620 | is this summer. What are we doing now? Right.
00:09:46.800 | And one of the most common things I hear homeschool moms hem and haw about, or just feel unsure about
00:09:54.480 | is the academics in the summer. Like, do we do school? Do not do school? Do they view it as a
00:10:00.840 | time where you're just taking a break? What does that look like if you take a break? How do you get
00:10:05.260 | back into it? You know, are your kids going to forget everything? How do you ladies, how do you ladies
00:10:10.720 | view the summertime academically, scholastically speaking? Is that a time where you guys just
00:10:16.960 | take a break from your studies or is that just a different sort of season for you guys? Camila,
00:10:23.240 | why don't you go first? I am probably not going to be the most common, but I don't do a thing. No, I
00:10:32.700 | used to have grand plans for the summer. Okay. I would come up with, I'll be like, oh baby,
00:10:40.320 | we're going to be speaking French. I would have these grand plans and then they would just sit
00:10:48.360 | and accumulate dust. And I'll be like, oh, my hard work that I spent, you know, two months really,
00:10:54.040 | really strategizing about. And then you feel guilty that you didn't do it.
00:11:00.020 | Like who needs that? Ridiculous. Ridiculous. And so we do not do
00:11:06.520 | academics in the summer. I am faithful with math. Math tends to be the thing that
00:11:13.600 | lingers a little bit longer. So I do make them finish our whole math curriculum, which usually I
00:11:19.540 | tell my kids, if you're diligent, you're finished by June 1st. If you do what your mom says.
00:11:25.660 | So, um, they, it's my goal for them to all be finished with their math by June 1st. And then
00:11:33.160 | other than that, we, we don't even pre-read the books for challenge. I know that some people think
00:11:39.980 | that it's working for you. You found the rhythm that works for your family. And that's really cool.
00:11:46.580 | Um, I will tell you that I was always more like that. Like I, when my kids were involved with CC,
00:11:55.500 | almost every year I tutored. And so, I mean, by the end of May, I was looking for a break too. I had done
00:12:03.820 | all that logic or all that chemistry or all that paper writing. And I thought I deserve a break today.
00:12:10.880 | And you too can have a break today. So we did not do, I mean, we, we did, I look back now and I realize
00:12:17.920 | that we practiced the skills of learning. We still had really rich conversations and we were just nerdy
00:12:26.300 | enough to find books about the places we visited on vacation and have history conversations. But we did
00:12:35.040 | not, you know, have a lesson. We didn't sit down at the table. There weren't assignments because there
00:12:41.040 | were so many other things to savor about the summer. So you're not doing academics, Miss Camila, with your
00:12:50.800 | family. What are y'all savoring this summer? So we just really savor time together. So the summertime for
00:13:00.720 | me is about relationships. First and foremost, I try to, a lot of people try to fill academic gaps.
00:13:07.920 | The summertime is when I try to fill spiritual gaps. I am, I am the things that I've seen all throughout
00:13:16.080 | the school year that have kind of like bothered me about particular kids, like questions that I asked
00:13:22.960 | and they didn't know where I was coming from or the way they were relating to, um, uh, authority or
00:13:30.160 | each other, even just those little things. I like to take this summer to really focus on those. So
00:13:37.360 | usually I give all of my kids a nonfiction book that is about some, some defect I've seen. No,
00:13:46.240 | about something. Something to aspire to. Something the Lord is leading them to grow.
00:13:54.320 | Yes, yes. A way that I want to see them grow sincerely. Um, so for instance, my older girls,
00:14:04.160 | my son left, he was my, uh, he was my leader in academics, right? He loved it. He relished these
00:14:10.880 | kinds of conversations. Um, and so I am going to go through total truth with my two older girls this
00:14:18.320 | summer just because their worldviews are very solid and academically they're very solid, but I tend to see
00:14:25.840 | like a gap between the two, if that makes sense. My oldest, my oldest daughter could probably teach a
00:14:33.200 | theology class. Um, but when it comes to just friendships and relationships, she struggles with
00:14:40.800 | like bringing all of herself to, to the party, if that makes sense. Yes. And so I, I just want to go
00:14:48.800 | through total truth with her to help her see this is not just you. This is the way that this society has
00:14:55.280 | been crafted to get you to have trouble with this. And so that's just, just little stuff like that. My son is
00:15:01.520 | going to be doing a study about manhood. It's just little things like that. We try to focus in on
00:15:08.000 | ways that we need to grow so that we can see those fruits during the school year.
00:15:14.880 | That's really, that's so full. Yeah. I love that. And, you know, I'm laughing to myself because of
00:15:21.920 | course the two of you are so far ahead of me in the parenting journey. So I'm like, oh yeah, I'm you.
00:15:27.280 | So rewind it, you know, 10 years, 20 years ago. Cause I'm like, oh, it's the summertime. This is our
00:15:33.060 | opportunity to just capitalize on this, that, the third. And I think, I think there's a space for that.
00:15:39.200 | There's a season for that. And in a second, I want to hone in on what you just said when it comes to age
00:15:44.720 | ranges, because what I'm feeling, and I'd love for you to speak to this as well, is that since my son is
00:15:52.120 | so young, you know, the pace of our school is a lot slower. So, and that's good. That's fine. But that means
00:16:00.220 | that there are a lot of things that I would have expected us to finish or to just understand like goals or
00:16:06.480 | milestones that I wanted him to, to, to cross, honestly, that we didn't cross yet. And we've been doing the
00:16:13.460 | repetition, but I, I'm thinking to myself, if I stop this repetition right now, we're going to be back at one, you
00:16:19.520 | know, in the fall. And I just don't, I don't think he has time for that. I think he'll be
00:16:24.420 | frustrated with himself if he forgets, you know, some of these really basic things that we're talking
00:16:29.660 | about. So there's that. And then on the other side, I think to myself, well, you know, the weather's just
00:16:35.940 | now getting good. So I wanted delusions of grandeur about me being out in my winter coat, doing this
00:16:42.120 | beautiful science exploration. Well, can I just tell you, I didn't do that. Right. Because we spend our time
00:16:48.000 | outside. I stood by the trampoline. I said, okay. And so now that it's nice and he's curious and he
00:16:57.280 | wants to see the bugs and the bugs are out. Yeah. I feel like maybe we should spend some more time
00:17:02.980 | on, you know, science and exploration, just some of that stuff that we, we kind of neglected during
00:17:08.740 | the cooler months. What do you think about that? And do you think that that might be something that's
00:17:14.740 | more appropriate for younger ages? Because of course they didn't get it all in the quote school
00:17:19.240 | year. I think that, well, when your kids are little, I have found that faithfulness is the
00:17:29.720 | most important thing with schoolwork. You don't have to be the, I don't, I don't have a toddler,
00:17:37.560 | but I'm here. Miss Rachel is all the rage. You don't have to be Miss Rachel. I would have said
00:17:41.980 | Barney, but that's too old. Um, you don't have to be, um, your very best, most preschool teacher
00:17:50.260 | self every day, but if you can just do it every day, it will pay off in the long run. So I would not
00:17:59.020 | stop. If, if my kid can't read yet, we're still going to do our letters and our, our, our, our right
00:18:04.960 | every day. We're just going to do that until you can read. And even when we're outside,
00:18:09.340 | you might collect the books, but now we have to count the books. You know what I mean? So
00:18:13.360 | we have to do it until you play, right? It can feel like play, but I'm going to know we're getting
00:18:22.660 | something out of this. Yeah. I can remember when one of my, my son, when he was little,
00:18:28.460 | him jumping into the pool to my husband, spelling his name. And my husband's like,
00:18:33.840 | you can only spell your first name. You can only jump when you say, Oh man. And so he's like,
00:18:39.180 | you know, you know, jumping into the pool. And so I remember that. I remember being like,
00:18:43.860 | he's never going to learn if we keep taking vacations, David.
00:18:47.480 | Oh, that's great. That's great. I love it.
00:18:54.860 | All kinds of stuff. Yeah. There's all, all that Pinterest stuff is for the summertime. I think
00:18:59.500 | writing and shaving cream and all that stuff. That's right. That's what you do in the summer.
00:19:03.960 | Yeah. There are, there are definitely things that you do to keep the stuff fresh. And I think you're
00:19:12.120 | right, Delise, that it matters more for the little ones who haven't maybe as firmly knocked in that peg.
00:19:21.160 | Like you were saying, Camila, if they don't know how to read yet, you don't want to stop
00:19:26.380 | those lessons. And you can always count things and, and categorize things and name colors and name
00:19:33.880 | shapes and everywhere you go. Um, but for the older kids, I think there is a lot of benefit
00:19:40.840 | to taking a break and letting them have a little bit of scope. I mean, like we always read,
00:19:47.160 | but our family's just readers. And so my girls, they had more of a chance in the summer to read
00:19:54.260 | whatever they wanted to, instead of following the challenge books. Cause I had one daughter that was
00:20:00.560 | a voracious reader. And so she could probably read something along with challenge books, but one
00:20:06.660 | daughter who that was enough. That was all the reading that the Lord had laid on her to do in a
00:20:12.040 | year. And so that's what she did. Um, and so it was more of a, what are you reading and would I like
00:20:18.520 | it too? And could we talk about it? And then I spent, I tended to spend some of my summer thinking
00:20:26.160 | about the year that was ahead, you know, how was what I was going to be doing with them,
00:20:32.660 | maybe different in the next year than it had been in the previous year. Um, do you, do you do any of
00:20:40.760 | that planning on your own Camila for the next school year? And, um, is there anything that you
00:20:47.720 | routinely did in the summer that you've always been glad that you did in the summer?
00:20:55.040 | Yes. So I always, I've directed, um, pretty much the whole time that we've done CC. So I do have a
00:21:01.640 | lot of planning to do. I'm getting very familiar with next year's curriculum, um, which is again,
00:21:07.520 | why they need to entertain themselves. Go and be free, go and be free. Um, I always there,
00:21:17.020 | anytime a challenge student has a workbook, I do the workbook in the summer because I won't have
00:21:24.640 | time when the school year starts. If you have a question with all of them. Yes. I don't know.
00:21:30.740 | I don't know what this is even about if I haven't looked through it. So I do the workbook in the
00:21:37.440 | summer and I don't buy double copies. So I tend to just do it in a composition notebook, which is
00:21:44.320 | better for me. Cause then I have that for, for subsequent children. Um, yeah. And it's also incognito
00:21:52.600 | in case somebody is tempted to cheat. It doesn't look like, Oh, there's mom's copy of the fallacy
00:21:58.360 | detective just sitting right there. What might happen if I, yes. So, um, that has been good,
00:22:06.560 | especially for the challenge B logic. I, um, that was, I did all of the, I watched all those videos
00:22:13.960 | and did all the student exercises myself that summer. And I mean, that has paid so many dividends.
00:22:21.540 | I wish that I had found that to do with everything my kids ever had to learn, but, um, right.
00:22:27.220 | Right. I do all of that. And this summer I am going into challenge a next year. So I will be doing
00:22:33.040 | a lot of math, the math math for me. It's very exciting. That's really good. That's really good.
00:22:40.720 | So you are, even if your kids don't have formal learning assignments, you have formal learning
00:22:47.060 | assignments for yourself that prepare you to be the lead learner. That's kind of cool. Do you enjoy that?
00:22:54.380 | I do. I do. Um, it's, it, that's when I feel like, I don't necessarily feel like I'm redeeming my own
00:23:00.940 | education throughout the school year. I am really just, um, I'm like bailing water during the school
00:23:07.620 | year. Um, yes. Um, but during the summertime, that's when I find all my Pentecost moments. That's
00:23:17.400 | when I feel like, uh, this is so good. That's what it's like a refresher for my heart too. Right. I'm ready
00:23:23.660 | to go after the summer of me just being invested in their books and knowing how solid of the education
00:23:30.920 | they're going to be receiving. That's what really gets me fired up. So then by August I'm like, we can
00:23:35.780 | do this. So it's so good because that way you can really cast the vision because you know where it's
00:23:44.100 | going. Cause you've actually done the end of the year's work before they begin. And so you've got an
00:23:50.260 | idea of how to cast a vision that's going to come to fruition for them. That's really smart.
00:23:55.880 | Yeah, it is. And doesn't she see, that's why I wanted her.
00:24:01.260 | And I, I love that you're saying that to you because I think sometimes, especially younger
00:24:12.080 | moms, um, or just new, new homeschooling moms, they don't realize that it's going to take that
00:24:17.400 | level of investment from them in order to teach their children. You know, and you think about
00:24:23.120 | just a traditional school teacher, how much time they spend on lesson planning and how much time
00:24:29.060 | when you buy the curriculum, it's not ready to go. It's here's, here's the path. And then you need
00:24:36.440 | to get ready to go. And you've got to, you've got to really protect your time. That's something I'm
00:24:40.920 | hearing in what you're saying. The fact that you've protected your time and you figured out
00:24:45.480 | how to shift your hours so that you could invest the time in your child's education preemptively
00:24:52.260 | so that when it's time for them to do it, and, and I've said this before, but it's always stuck
00:24:57.040 | out to me. And I guess I'm saying it to remind myself as I'm just getting going on the journey.
00:25:00.560 | I remember waking up in the middle of the night and my mother studying my textbook. That was a normal
00:25:06.600 | thing. Right. And, you know, and I was one of four and that, and that's what it takes, you know?
00:25:12.480 | And so when we hear all these conflicting ideas about homeschooling or people saying, Oh, you know,
00:25:17.280 | I'm not sure if it was enough or I'm not, it can be enough, but you will need to apply yourself
00:25:21.520 | so that it is enough. I mean, and that's how it is. It's like the curriculum. It's like the curriculum
00:25:27.140 | is the powdered concentrate and you have to add the water to it. Well, guess what? You're the water.
00:25:34.080 | Yes. Okay. And, and if you don't add enough of you, then the curriculum stays chunky and it's chunky
00:25:41.900 | and it's not easy to digest and it's not really very palatable and it's not something you're going
00:25:48.700 | to want and your child's going to find it difficult and you're going to find it unappealing. But if
00:25:53.840 | you'll be the water, if you will mix in with that, it is way better for you and for your child. And
00:26:01.880 | your relationship will be the better for it because you will be lead learning from your overflow
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00:27:28.540 | experience. Let's get back to the conversation.
00:27:31.040 | Exactly. And that's your gift. Like that's the invitation. That's the gift that you get. Just like what you were saying,
00:27:38.480 | Camila, that's what you get out of now that you're doing it for yourself, but that's what you'll get out of
00:27:44.020 | homeschooling. And we know that this is true in every other area of our lives. So I'm saying,
00:27:48.200 | everybody, let's bring this, let's bring this to the books because this is how it works. And you know,
00:27:55.320 | and it's not just about the books. We're, we're lead learning and we're learning in every area of our
00:27:59.580 | lives. And so I'm curious for you ladies, what your summers look like as far as household management,
00:28:06.820 | because I know I'm making a little bit of an assumption here. So you can correct me.
00:28:11.360 | Typically the woman is the one managing the household. If she's the one who's also homeschooling
00:28:16.620 | the children or the primary educator. So does that shift for you in the summertime? Is it the same?
00:28:23.360 | What are the rhythms that you put in place to keep everything from, you know, just going to pot?
00:28:30.140 | Because of course, exactly. You have, you have your normal rhythms that kind of are stakes in the
00:28:37.300 | ground for your kids to know. Okay. And after we do math, we empty the dishwasher. So if you remove
00:28:41.440 | those, what does the house routine look like? So in my house, I just want to say something real quick
00:28:48.700 | about the previous metaphor. I just kept thinking this the whole time you're talking about adding the
00:28:52.980 | water and you being the water, the water gets boiled. So that's right. It has to be hot.
00:29:01.440 | That's true. That's so good. I definitely am the household manager in our, as far as the day-to-day
00:29:12.980 | chores and everything. So years ago, David, my husband was very strict about the fact that he wanted our
00:29:22.080 | kids to do chores. So all of my kids do chores. I do very little actual, um, cleaning on a day-to-day
00:29:30.680 | basis during the school year. So the summertime for me is about deep cleaning and like, he's going to
00:29:38.840 | put up a ladder so I can clean the big three-story window in the, you know, in the foyer. And we're
00:29:45.480 | going to, I'm going to clean out the garage and sweep the floor in the garage. Those kinds of like,
00:29:50.080 | we'll let that sit. Um, but we actually have more housework in the summertime because we have a pool.
00:29:57.960 | And so we have lots of people coming in with drippy feet to get a popsicle, which means you have to
00:30:03.480 | mop the floor more often. And we have, you know, so, um, my kids don't necessarily, we have morning and
00:30:13.080 | evening rhythms. We don't base our household chores around school. We say in the morning,
00:30:19.220 | you need to sleep before at, you know, before lunch. Like we give those kinds of, you know,
00:30:25.960 | you're going to eat every day. So if you eat three lunches, then you need to sleep after three lunches.
00:30:30.460 | Stop eating. Um, so that is, um, a big thing. And then also we have the added, like the guest room
00:30:40.280 | is a big thing in the summertime because it's also the craft room and also the spare room, which is what
00:30:46.660 | we call it. So it has lots of stuff and then we have people coming over. So now we got to set that
00:30:51.720 | up. So we have lots of extra stuff that doesn't exist in the school year. Um, so it's actually
00:30:58.220 | easier for me to maintain the house during the school year when everything is a no. Um, there's
00:31:04.600 | so many yeses during the summertime. Yes. So can she spend the night? Well, it's like, ah, yes,
00:31:11.960 | but now we have to, you know, so that is in the, in the summer, we just have a ton more to do. So my
00:31:18.840 | kids are working harder and more, more around the house as well. Well, and it's probably good for them
00:31:25.200 | because you've got the time to teach them to do things that you didn't have time. I know in the school
00:31:31.960 | year for me, it was always there there's the minimum viable standard, right? There's the minimum viable
00:31:38.300 | product. And so there are things that have to be done every day. There are things that have to be done
00:31:43.000 | every week, but sometimes, especially as, as their schoolwork got a little more demanding,
00:31:48.820 | it was easier for me to do something while they were, they were working than for me to wait for
00:31:55.380 | them to have time to do it or for me to take the time to show them. But summer became the time where
00:32:02.680 | I could teach them to do some of the bigger chores that they didn't know how to do, right? Or that I
00:32:11.420 | didn't, let's be really real, that I did not want to wait for them to perfect. I just need it to be done.
00:32:17.940 | So I need you to move out of the way and I'm just going to do it. But in the summertime, I was more
00:32:22.740 | able to say, we're going to do these things together. And then there were other, there were outside chores,
00:32:29.760 | you know, that didn't exist. So there's, there's, there's sticker balls to be picked up before daddy
00:32:36.400 | mows so that he's not pressed them into the lawn, which really annoyed him. And so there's sticks to be,
00:32:42.940 | and our yard was huge. And so there was always something that could be trimmed or cut back or
00:32:49.940 | planted in the yard. So there was a lot more outside stuff to do. And that's when we saved our big
00:32:57.020 | projects. Like if we're going to paint the hall or paint the two-story stairway, or somebody wants to
00:33:03.240 | change their room around, we're going to wait till the summer, you know, they've changed their theme.
00:33:09.420 | And so we have all this decorating stuff to do. We saved that for the summer and we had more time
00:33:16.980 | and we enjoyed it more because we weren't so under the gun. And there was a little bit more time to,
00:33:25.000 | to savor even house projects than there were. But then we made time to savor other things in the summer.
00:33:33.460 | We savored trips. Our family almost always took a trip to the beach and, um, we had vacations,
00:33:40.420 | sometimes where we went to visit family or where we went to visit, um, national monuments, or we,
00:33:48.040 | we went to visit, we went, took a couple of trips to Disney world. Um, do you guys have vacations
00:33:55.260 | planned for this summer, Camila? So we, we do go to the beach quite often. It's actually funny. Um,
00:34:02.260 | we're about two hours from the beach and in the summer, I say a lot of yeses. My kids really enjoy
00:34:08.820 | that. That's their favorite. And so my oldest, actually my middle child came to me and said,
00:34:14.260 | how can we make more beach trips a yes this summer? Cause we can go once or twice.
00:34:20.740 | See, that's perfect. You're teaching her preparation tips. So how can we arrange to make this a more,
00:34:29.360 | um, palatable thing for mom? Yeah.
00:34:33.580 | And I explained to her, I said, you know, that's a great question. The reason the beach is a no
00:34:39.260 | a lot is because you guys want me to facilitate. So you say, can we go to the beach? I say yes.
00:34:46.220 | And then I pack the cooler, make the lunches, find the, uh, uh, sunscreen, get the chairs, get the,
00:34:52.680 | and that makes it a no sometimes. Because sometimes I don't want to do that or I don't have time to do
00:34:59.100 | that. Yes. I said, so if you will pack the lunch and then you get your siblings to help you pack the
00:35:05.020 | cooler and then y'all get the chairs in the van, I will happily drive to the beach more often.
00:35:10.680 | Oh, that's so good.
00:35:12.080 | And they were like, we need to have a meeting right now.
00:35:15.720 | That's good. I mean, to train your children that there is preparation involved, even in a trip to
00:35:29.480 | the pool, my girls used to hound me. Will you take us? And that usually meant the two of them
00:35:35.440 | and as many friends as we could stuff in the van. Will you take us to the pool? And so I would say,
00:35:41.440 | how ready are you to go? I mean, like, is your bathing suit on? Do you know where the sunscreen is?
00:35:47.740 | Do you have your sandals? Do you have the change? Are your friends ready to be picked up? Like, I mean,
00:35:53.600 | if you're asking me this and it's going to take us two hours to go and I only have three hours this
00:35:59.380 | afternoon, then that's going to be a no because that's not worth it. Right. Right. Well, and I
00:36:04.080 | think too, again, I'm listening from like a totally different season of life, but that's why I love
00:36:09.060 | these conversations because I realized I had to do that for myself because it was becoming a no for me,
00:36:15.080 | but I love the summertime and I want to be there at the water and I have little ones, right? So he can't
00:36:20.980 | do it for me. I have a dream that one day will be the one doing it for me. But until then I said,
00:36:28.060 | okay, well, what is my stuck? So I just made my car beach ready. I said, you know what? I could use
00:36:32.860 | this third row or I could put the chairs down. I could put, you know, the seats down and leave my
00:36:38.000 | chairs in the car, have a beach ready bag that has everything and just have a mental cue that if I ever
00:36:43.520 | take something out of this bag, like I use it up, I have to put it back. I have to put something again.
00:36:48.360 | So like this whole past month, I've been, you know, buying sunglasses when I wash the towels,
00:36:55.480 | throwing the towels in the beach bag, doing all this different stuff so that we're beach ready.
00:37:01.020 | Even the snacks, you know, I buy snacks, I buy two. I drop a bag of chips in the beach bag.
00:37:05.640 | That's so smart.
00:37:07.500 | And for a picnic or just for an impromptu, we're out. And now all of a sudden, especially being
00:37:16.160 | pregnant, I need a chair, you know, I can't sit on the grass, but I would like a chair.
00:37:21.880 | And you need snacks, maybe an individual, like my kids knew not to ask me at the grocery store
00:37:28.300 | to buy individual packs of snacks. I'm like, no, that we'll have a math lesson. Let us have a math
00:37:34.060 | lesson about unit prices. And we're not doing that. But when spring came, I started stockpiling
00:37:40.700 | those things, not for public consumption at home, but to put in the picnic bag or the go to the pool
00:37:48.500 | bag. And so it was always ready. I always had something. Yeah, exactly. So that's important too.
00:37:55.100 | Yeah, that's really, really good. Well, you know, Camilla, in between, you're going through all
00:38:01.920 | the workbooks for all your kids and going to the beach as often as your children want you to go.
00:38:07.920 | Do you have any big house projects? What are you doing with your summer girl? Are you cleaning the
00:38:14.300 | house? Or do you have any painting to do? How have y'all dealt with big house projects? Because you said
00:38:22.120 | you have a pool. I know that's a significant upkeep. Yes. So we have, we built this house five
00:38:31.120 | years ago. And so we don't have a lot of projects. That was the song that was, I need to be new so that
00:38:39.280 | I can have a break because I was doing projects so often. And we bought our first house. We thought we
00:38:45.480 | were going to be Chip and Joe, right? We were like, oh, it's so cute. Oh, it's going to be so
00:38:50.000 | much fun. Yeah. And then like 10 minutes into the first project, my husband looks at me and goes,
00:38:55.340 | I hate this. I hate this. I never want to do this. And I was like, what? We got a lot left.
00:39:01.260 | The list is long for him. Yes. So he realized he is not Chip. He was like, I do not enjoy this at all.
00:39:11.060 | So we built this house with the thought that we're not Chip and Joe. So we are not going to be doing
00:39:20.540 | any big renovations, at least until we get them out of the house. But I definitely have to upgrade
00:39:28.300 | some bedrooms this summer because the vibes are off. That's what I've been doing. The vibes are just
00:39:35.820 | too young. This is not me anymore, mom. No. This is five years ago. Seriously.
00:39:41.520 | This is so five years ago. So that's fun. So I will be doing, I did buy neutral furniture. So we just
00:39:50.240 | have to change the vibe. So that should be easy. That is so funny. So how will you keep everything
00:39:57.920 | else running smoothly when you have the bedrooms all torn apart, changing the vibe?
00:40:02.860 | Yes. So I actually have learned this lesson through many hardships because I had the bright
00:40:08.420 | idea for two Christmases. I didn't even learn the first time, two Christmases. I was foolish enough
00:40:15.320 | to think, you know, it'll be a great Christmas present. I can redo the kids' rooms. Right.
00:40:20.200 | That's amazing. It's not amazing. Don't do it. It's a bad idea. This is all of their rooms.
00:40:26.620 | What is wrong with me? What is wrong with this picture? Let's see. And then it's December 21st and
00:40:35.380 | I'm like, don't talk to me. I'm so frustrated. I'm sorry. And I'm like a maniac. And it's just,
00:40:43.600 | that's not, that's not what the Lord wants for me. So joyous. No, this is not what I think of when I
00:40:49.600 | think of the Christmas season. So this, what I've learned is you have to, I have to let my kids know
00:40:57.780 | this is for lunch and this is for dinner. You may have these things for snack. That's very important
00:41:04.040 | so that I am not like finally in my groove. And then somebody's like, let's for dinner. And then I like
00:41:09.840 | rage nail gun them to the wall or something like that. Stop asking me that. I don't know why that
00:41:17.400 | question bothers me the way that it does, but it is just, it sounds like I don't love you. That's
00:41:24.300 | what it sounds like to me. I don't trust you. You haven't planned. Yeah. Hey, how are you failing us
00:41:31.000 | today, mom? So I don't know. So that is for me having a conversation with my husband and now my
00:41:38.260 | two oldest, my, I have two big girls that are here. So it's so easy. I can just say, Hey,
00:41:43.620 | I'm about to go start this project. This is for dinner. This is for lunch. And then I set the
00:41:50.860 | parameters. You can watch this much TV, have this much screen time, two people to a TV, you know,
00:41:58.540 | I set all my standards and then I, then I can focus on the project. Cause I am at a really,
00:42:05.240 | really, really sweet spot. I did have a time when, you know, somebody had to sit next to me and count
00:42:11.060 | the nails. That was part of it. I remember those days. Oh yeah. Not my favorite. And I'll be like,
00:42:16.840 | you have to wear your shoes because of the nails. And then 10 minutes later, somebody was like,
00:42:21.080 | I need a bandaid because there's a nail.
00:42:24.140 | Yes. Yes. Yes. But I'm at a time now where people just leave me alone and let me finish the
00:42:32.520 | project. Um, and I'm also at a time where I can like get 90% of the way finished and then say,
00:42:38.800 | you come vacuum, you come dust the baseboards, you come put the sheets on the bed.
00:42:44.580 | This is your spot. This is your thing to do. I love that. I think that, um, you know, I finally
00:42:52.640 | discovered that what caused conflict in my home is, well, it's actually the same thing that causes
00:42:59.660 | conflict in all of our relationships. It's unmet expectations. Oh yeah. And so if I set the
00:43:07.120 | expectations of this is what's coming for supper and this is what time it's going to come. Um,
00:43:15.020 | and these are the substitutions that are allowed, then every, nobody's mad when that very plan comes
00:43:23.480 | to fruition. We all knew that's what the plan was and nobody was confused and nobody was surprised.
00:43:29.500 | And so that helped having a plan. I mean, I am a planner person, but, but sharing the plan with
00:43:36.280 | everybody that the plan was going to affect actually kept the peace in our home. Yeah. A lot better.
00:43:43.640 | Also for me sharing with David, uh, beforehand that I'm going to need help is that's like,
00:43:51.640 | that was like, why didn't I think of this before? Why are you not happy to help me the second you walk
00:43:57.160 | in the house from work? This is weird. I'm going to need you to move this stuff tomorrow night. And
00:44:14.320 | he's like, I got you. You know, that has been so helpful for him. Instead of just expecting that
00:44:20.560 | he will notice that you are doing this project and he will know that you're going to need help with
00:44:27.000 | this aspect. And surely he can tell I'm almost there. No, just hear me when I said, I'm thinking
00:44:34.000 | about redoing the kids' bedrooms. Didn't you hear me? Didn't you know that that meant all of these?
00:44:39.160 | Could you not read my mind after these many years that we've been married? So weird. That's another,
00:44:44.460 | that's another one of those unmet expectations. So like I expected you to read my mind. Let me tell
00:44:51.040 | you, we've been married almost 39 years. It does not happen. It is not going to happen. Stop,
00:44:56.840 | holding your breath. Mind reading is not it. And so that's the unmet. I need to set the expectation
00:45:04.520 | and I need to hear your pushback in the planning stage, not in the, I am now holding the 500 pounds
00:45:13.340 | waiting for you to perform. Right. Exactly. And, and I love that you said in the planning stage,
00:45:19.380 | because I think that's something my husband and I, Evan, we, we have very different personalities.
00:45:24.520 | And so to me, time, I could give you my time forever and just feel like I didn't give you
00:45:29.520 | anything. I don't have a problem with that. Right. Time is his most valued commodity. So he's like,
00:45:36.540 | listen, how I structure my time is very important, et cetera, et cetera. And so something that I'm still
00:45:42.940 | having to learn is even to structure my ask around his time. So rather than say, you know,
00:45:51.420 | and everybody's husband's different, but rather than say, okay, can you do this for me tomorrow?
00:45:54.920 | It's like, when will you have the time to X? And then I'm going to plan backwards from that because
00:46:00.240 | he'll do what he says he's going to do. Right. But far be it for me to assume that on a random Thursday
00:46:05.540 | night, he's going to be coming up and down ladders. And that he'll be happy about it. Yes. Because
00:46:10.700 | see, he might do it, but he's not going to be happy about it. I know. Exactly. Yeah. And then there
00:46:16.220 | are my unmet expectations, you know, because I'm thinking, oh, it'd be no big deal. This is going to
00:46:20.080 | be in 10 minutes. Yeah. Yeah. No problem. Yeah. Exactly. So it's, it's definitely, there's a learning
00:46:27.240 | curve there. Yes. It is. And just a little bit of forethought. A lot of times we'll head off a world
00:46:35.040 | of hurt feelings or, you know, I'm a little annoyed with you. So. Yes. Sure. I remember the day I was
00:46:42.840 | having David help me with something randomly and he, I could see his jaw clench. He clenches his jaw
00:46:48.260 | and he's frustrated. His jaw clenched and he went, I didn't even think this was a good idea. And I remember
00:46:55.220 | being shocked because I thought we were very excited. Right. Right. Right. The royal way.
00:47:02.500 | We are excited about this. Didn't you look at Pinterest all those hours that I did? What?
00:47:08.960 | You didn't think this was going to be amazing? Oh, that's so weird. Yeah. Yeah. Yes. The communication.
00:47:16.740 | Well, I could chat with you guys for, for obviously quite a long time, but we do have to land the plane
00:47:24.040 | soon. So why don't we land it on this last question? Cause we made a promise at the beginning of the
00:47:28.240 | show to our listeners, not just us in the ring, you know, that we were also going to touch on,
00:47:33.680 | you know, what the spiritual aspect, although that's in all of the aspects of our lives.
00:47:38.540 | But what, what cultivating that aspect of our lives is going to look like. And I think
00:47:45.040 | when I heard you say expectations, Lisa, one of the things I realized was that I think sometimes we
00:47:51.540 | have an unmet expectation for ourselves, perhaps an unrealistic expectation for ourselves that if we
00:47:59.200 | change our routines, my walk with God will stay the same. And I'll just have all those cues to like sit
00:48:07.000 | and have my quiet time. And even if my kids aren't doing school at the same time that they normally are,
00:48:11.500 | are waking up at the same time that they normally are, of course, we'll be able to carve out that
00:48:14.960 | time. And even if we go on 15 trips during the summer, of course, we're going to be connected to
00:48:19.780 | our family, our church family. Of course, we're not going to feel like there's any shift and that's not
00:48:24.920 | realistic. And so I think this is a really important area for us to touch on at the end of the
00:48:31.300 | conversation because you need to plan to, to continue to cultivate your walk with the Lord.
00:48:38.460 | And that can look different and be a good thing. But what does that look like for you guys in the
00:48:44.820 | summer as you, as you steward your time, as you lead your families? I know you said, Camila, that you
00:48:50.340 | have some books that you have your kids read. What do you do for yourself and what do you do for your
00:48:54.440 | families to make sure that you stay on the path during the summertime?
00:48:59.420 | So we do still, obviously we still go to church. We don't tend to take trips in the summer. We go to
00:49:07.080 | the beach, but those are usually day trips. Our trips are usually during the year. So that's easier
00:49:13.980 | for me in that we don't have to leave during the summer sometimes. But usually I like to go deeper
00:49:21.960 | in the summertime. So for me, I will, same way I do with my kids, I'm like, what did they really
00:49:29.260 | struggle with? And how can we fix that? Or how can we attack that? Not necessarily fix it, but
00:49:35.660 | offer it to the Lord and let him fix it over the summer. I do the same thing with myself. I like to go
00:49:42.720 | deeper. There's all kinds of like scripture journals and things. I have several of them
00:49:47.900 | from over summers past that I, I didn't realize that that's what I was doing until I realized it
00:49:53.740 | when looking at my collection one year. I was like, I do this every summer. Look at me. So I tend to go
00:50:01.160 | deeper during the summer. I have one right now that's a humility and it's a prayer journal and it gives you
00:50:07.440 | a prompt and a scripture passage to read. And then like, you know, some, some questions about
00:50:13.820 | humility. And I like it because I can date it and I can see my growth over this summer. And then all
00:50:21.900 | throughout the school year, that's like my little Ebenezer. Remember when the Lord taught me this?
00:50:27.260 | Remember when the Lord taught me that? So that's one thing that I enjoy for myself is just trying to go
00:50:33.520 | deeper. So that can be podcasts. That can be, I listened to so many audio sermons. I just walk
00:50:41.060 | around and I know the people at Walmart be so freaked out. It's sometimes my ear pod fell out. They're like,
00:50:46.760 | what? Yeah. Sorry. Hopefully that doesn't scare you. Hopefully I give you hope.
00:50:54.520 | But yeah, I listen to a ton of sermons. So yeah, that's, I like to go, try to go deeper
00:51:01.280 | in the summertime. I, a lot of times will pick up. I, I'll have friends who will tell me about
00:51:09.360 | devotionals that they're going through or studies, book studies that they're going through during the
00:51:14.540 | year. And so I save all those in my Amazon cart and then I just start buying them in the,
00:51:20.280 | as the spring comes. I try to do some of those in the summertime that maybe I don't feel like I have
00:51:28.900 | the time to do or, or to do justice to them during the year. And so that is something that I have done
00:51:37.080 | for myself. And when my kids were home, we continued to do our devotions together in the morning. Even
00:51:45.200 | though we weren't having formal school lessons in the morning, it was just a habit that had become
00:51:51.100 | very comforting to us and a good way for us to start the day together, kind of set us off on a good
00:51:58.380 | tone. Um, and I know when, um, our major vacation, when the girls were little was a beach trip, we would
00:52:07.740 | go to the beach. Um, my husband's uncle had a house at the beach that he let us use for free in the off
00:52:14.480 | season. And in those early years for free was the big selling point of that. And so like my girls,
00:52:21.060 | I think they thought that the beach was a synonym for vacation because that's the only thing we ever
00:52:27.640 | did. And they had never stayed at a hotel because we always stayed at uncle Bob's beach house. Um,
00:52:32.740 | but when they were little, we felt like it was important that they knew we weren't taking a vacation
00:52:38.060 | from God. So we found a beach church. And so every year for probably 10 or 12 years, once a year,
00:52:48.800 | we went to our beach church and it was not the same kind of church. It was, um, a much more liturgical
00:52:57.120 | church that we found that was close to the beach house that had a very warm fellowship, but a much
00:53:03.340 | different style of worship than we had at, they were exposed to at home. And so that was actually
00:53:10.020 | very beautiful too, because it highlighted different practices of worship and it highlighted, um, uh,
00:53:17.680 | there was a catechism that they recited there. And so, um, it gave us fresh things to talk about
00:53:25.000 | together spiritually. That was kind of cool. I love that. That is really cool. We always try to
00:53:30.740 | be home for church, but that's a really good idea to, to visit a new church. So like at the place where
00:53:36.360 | you're vacationing, I love that. Yeah. And then even as the girls got older, I know one time Stephanie
00:53:41.620 | was in college and we, um, took her to Charleston just by herself because she loves Charleston so much.
00:53:48.740 | Um, she and my husband got up early one morning to go to a local Catholic church because they just,
00:53:55.860 | it had become the thing to do to find a different kind of church when we would be on vacation. So
00:54:02.320 | that was kind of cool. And that's something that I think she continues to do. She and her husband now
00:54:07.340 | that she's married. So. Oh, I love that. Yeah. You're passing along the legacy. Yeah, there you go.
00:54:14.980 | A legacy. I love it. I love it. Well, Camila and Lisa, thank you so much for just taking the time
00:54:22.180 | to give us a peek, you know, into both your past and your potential future summers. Um,
00:54:28.340 | it's definitely been encouraging for me. You have me thinking a lot about the way I want to approach
00:54:33.840 | things and things I want to notice. Even I loved what you said at the beginning of this conversation,
00:54:39.740 | Camila, about paying attention to the way that your children are responding and then
00:54:44.580 | planning a time to shepherd their hearts more strategically. Um, I think that's probably going
00:54:50.440 | to be one of my biggest takeaways from this conversation. And if you all enjoyed this episode,
00:54:55.640 | we do hope that you will share it with a friend. Um, you can find us over on social media and we would
00:55:02.540 | love for you to go and send us a message over there. Tell us, you know, what aspect of this episode
00:55:08.440 | encouraged you and, um, continue the conversation with each other online at Everyday Educator Podcast,
00:55:16.440 | um, on social media. And in case you didn't know, we just want to remind you that we're also on YouTube
00:55:22.180 | now. So you can watch the videos if that's more engaging to you over on the Classical Conversations
00:55:28.420 | YouTube channel. Thank you guys for listening and we will see you again next week.
00:55:32.800 | Thank you.