SCHOOL. Boys are happy and when boys are happy, mom and dad are happy. We’ve tried something new this year. Every day the boys write down what they need to accomplish on a dry erase board on the fridge and they decide how to schedule their assignments during the day. That’s worked well for Gus—who is like his father, Mr. Organized and Disciplined—but it has worked less well for Jeb, who is probably more like me—needing structure.

Cue Chariots of Fire! Jeb finishing his awesome 5K. (Almost as awesome was that it was cold and rainy in Texas. Hooray!) Notice the guy in blue trying to keep up with the speedy one.

After a few days when Jeb was having some motivation problems (and mom was having some “I can’t do this anymore” moments), the threat of regular 7-hour-a-day school was brought out. I know some people might think homeschooling parents force their kids into this kind of life, but I can tell you from Jeb’s reaction to the idea of regular schooling, that this is absolutely his choice. We quickly worked out another plan—where we would go back to organizing Jeb’s day into blocks of prescribed work time. That seems to have fixed the problem.

SPORTS. We have told the boys that they always need to be involved in sports. Not because we have visions of Olympics or pro contracts dancing in our heads, but because we want them to get in the habit of regular exercise. Gus is on a fabulous swim team and has been swimming four days a week (an hour and 15 minutes each session). That’s a lot of swimming and his commitment has paid off. Last week, his swim club named him “swimmer of the week” for his level. Plus, he has thinned out so much that he needs a belt for pants that used to fit snugly. (He’s also shot up—which has nothing to do with swimming of course—and now he’s actually taller than I am. The day that we realized he had passed me was one I’ll always remember with a mix of pride and the heartbreak every parent feels at those significant milestones that shout, “He’s not your baby anymore.”)

Jeb played soccer this fall and loved his position as sweeper (a defensive position that places him right in front of his goal). Now that soccer season is over, he’s looking for something else to keep him active (besides trying to perfect his flips on the trampoline). He comes from a long line of runners—Robb ran a marathon at age 13 and was on his high school track and cross country teams; I ran track in junior high and his uncle Jeff was a serious cross country and track man and his beloved cousin Alex ran track for West Point. And it’s been hard not to notice how fast Jeb is when he has done warm ups with his soccer or baseball teams.

So last Saturday Robb and Jeb ran a 5K sponsored by our local YMCA. Jeb had never run a race and has done very little training, but he came in 10^th overall out of 125 participants with a time of 25 minutes, 40 seconds. He beat his Dad by 8 seconds and says he held back a bit because he didn’t want to leave Robb completely in the dust. (Ouch!) We’re hoping he’ll want to run more races and that we can find a running club for him to join.

LANGUAGE. Through the fall the boys have been working on their French with our lovely friend Isabelle Bettler and also keeping up on their Spanish grammar and writing with our new friend, Rosy Osorio. They’ve been reading books in Spanish and writing stories. (Maybe writing in Spanish is more liberating for them since their Mom can’t edit them in Spanish.)

Gulp! It's happened! Gus is taller than me now. I'm 5'8" and he's closer to 5'9". Oh my, how time flies.

But for a couple of reasons Gus has decided to switch to Chinese. He began to feel that French wasn’t enough of a challenge—since it was so close to Spanish. He’s always thought he would tackle one of the big, brain-bending languages—ones that don’t use our alphabet—and was considering Arabic and Chinese. I was always pressing for Chinese, but he was leaning toward Arabic. It turns out however that there are many more opportunities in Austin to learn Chinese than there are for Arabic. Plus, Gus may have the chance to tag along with Robb when he goes to China in the spring for a Geographic trip.

So he sat in on a Chinese class that is offered by a Chinese school that caters mostly to children of native speakers who live in the Austin area. He’s in a beginner class with four other adults and three other kids and is getting some private tutoring too. Well he’ll tell you that Chinese certainly supplies the “challenge” factor he was missing with French. When Gus was listening to a Chinese pronunciation video online, Jeb just shook his head. “I feel sorry for Gus,” he said. One side benefit of Gus taking Chinese is that it has made Jeb appreciate French more!

TRAVEL. Because we were planning on a big move this spring, no one wanted to tackle a major trip this school year (no one except me, but I was out voted. Democracy can be a nuisance.)

Instead, we’re doing two small trips during the holidays. Before Christmas we’re going up to New York City to catch a play or two and some intense holiday spirit. I don’t know if there’s a place on Earth quite as glittery and festive (and crowded) as Fifth Avenue during the holidays.

After Christmas we’ll head to San Miguel again—this time with Robb, who missed all the fun last summer. There will be friends to see and Spanish to be practiced. Then from there we’ll go to our favorite beach in the world, Troncones. It’s on the Pacific coast, just above Zihautanejo and Ixtapa. Unlike these two famous beach towns, Troncones is not developed at all.  No high rises—just low-slung hotels and bungalows. For me, it’s the dream beach town. Palapas, a wide beach and surf. And what a surf. It’s a big spot for surfers, but we like to boogie board. The waves are so strong that you can get a great ride every time just hanging out close in, after they’ve broken.

After the holidays we’ll be busy figuring out our next move. Or maybe we’ll decide that the universe is conspiring to keep us in Texas.  It’s a little crazy, but at the same time exciting. Round and round the Kendricks go; where they’ll land nobody knows.

Robb and Jeb (#11 and #10 finishers, respectively) after the race.

I'm laughing here, but I had a moment of tears about this monumental moment.

This was taken the last time we were at our favorite beach, Troncones--on the Pacific. We can't wait to get back there.

Jeb with his new puppy Jelly Bean--the least disruptive of our recent changes.

It’s Week One of Year Three of homeschooling and as usual at this point, I’m trying to keep my frazzle factor down as I piece together a schedule for the boys that gives them all the intellectual and social stimulation they need. This is more challenging than in the past because of two recent changes in our lives—the least disruptive being Jeb’s brand new puppy named Jelly Bean, which we adopted two days ago.

The boys are taking their once-a-week classes at a couple of different institutions in Austin (CCPA and Reach). They’re both back with their incredible science teacher, Cheryl Taylor, who almost single-handedly has made both boys elevate science to “Favorite Subject” status. Jeb is taking Middle School Science. Gus is taking pre-AP Chemistry, following pre-AP Biology last year.

(See note at bottom of this post to learn how these one-day-a-week academies work, plus our schedule.)

Jeb is also taking a writing class, Algebra 1 and guitar and playing soccer; Gus has a high school writing class, Geometry and an Honors American Government class. He’s in Boy Scouts and on a swim team. They will also have sessions with their lovely French tutor, Isabelle Bettler, and with their Spanish teacher, Rosa Osario, who we are just getting to know but who is full of enthusiasm and great ideas.

What Am I Doing?

So, you may ask, if they’re taking all these classes with other teachers (professional teachers, I might add), what’s my role in all this?

That’s a good question. Actually I will teach one class—American History to Jeb. We did a kind of American History survey class two years ago, but I think Jeb needs a bit more detail and I’m using some incredible books and movies to work our way through (see below). Gus is already a rabid history lover who seeks out history books and movies on his own.

Other than that, I am the grand keeper of the schedule, the conductor of an unruly and often far-flung orchestra. I oversee all their classes, pick out the novels they read (every morning when they wake up they read for an hour) and just have my nose in all their schoolwork during the week (though Robb is the point person on all things math related).

But probably my main duty at this point—after teachers and classes have been found—is chauffeur. Isn’t that on the job description of most every mom? Well, I feel like I’ve gone beyond amateur chauffeur and into the professional ranks. Remember that I wrote a blog last year about how we shouldn’t call it “home schooling” but “car schooling” since a lot of time is spent getting kids from one place to another to get them the best teachers and learning experience.

But the good thing is that I’m just driving around two days a week. Mondays in Central Austin and Tuesdays in South Austin. Other than that we’re around home or doing other things we think are important, such as community service.

That’s why I still love this homeschooling experiment. The freedom! For instance, Robb and I felt that the boys needed to hear about good nutrition from somebody other than ourselves (you know how teenagers learn to tune out their parents’ voice frequency), so we found a healthy eating expert at Whole Foods that’s going to work with them. I’m sure they’ll have more fun with this guy than listening to me drone on about every dinner menu needing something green on it and the dangers of polysyllabic food additives.

I Demote Myself

This year will be the first time I haven’t worked with them on English. I’ve demoted myself, to be honest. We’ve worked hard on grammar and writing, but it’s often hard for me to judge how well they should be writing for their age level. Also, I think there’s a lot of baggage for them surrounding writing. They know I do it as a profession and sometimes when I go over their blogs or book reports, they’ll say things like, “This isn’t like one of your magazine stories, Mom!”

Also, I had a bit of a reality check when the boys took the Iowa Tests of Basic Skills (a national standardized test). I’m happy to report that the boys were above average on most all their subjects. The only two areas where they scored below average were Spelling and Punctuation.

“I’m going to have to speak to your English teacher,” Robb said in mock seriousness when he read over their results.

I, of course, felt like crapola since those two areas are in my bailiwick (but I should add, in my defense, that in vocabulary, usage and comprehension they excelled). That’s when I made the decision for certain that I was going to hand over English and writing to someone else, with my head hung low.

But if they got nothing else from my tenure as English teacher, I hope they have learned the difference between “there,” “their” and “they’re” AND “your” and “you’re” AND “its and it’s.” I drilled that into them because I see these mistakes ALL the time, by adults and professionals–even in ads!

I’m not a fanatic about spelling, since truth be told I’ve never been a good speller myself. But I learned never to trust myself, so when in doubt I ALWAYS look up a word. I also made a commitment to learn those commonly confused words above. Anytime I turn in a story, I go through it as carefully an IRS auditor to check that I didn’t say something like, “The boys were glad there ball didn’t go over their.” Arrrrgh. Epic failure, as the boys would say.

(I warn the boys that spell check can’t catch that kind of mistake.)

But I digress into grammar—probably the dullest subject possible. And that just won’t do. It seems our family is allergic to dull, for better and worse. Well, that’s the conclusion I’m coming to lately and maybe part of the explanation for a decision we’ve made, one that either prompts eye-rolling in people who hear of it or a look that says, “What’s wrong with you people?”

The Big Change In The Works

And I’m not talking about the puppy. (She’s adorable and I love her even though she’s added some havoc in our lives, especially at the moment when Robb is traveling and we’re house training her and can’t leave her alone for long).

I’m talking about our decision to leave Austin. Even though we practically just arrived and we love our house and friends and homeschool set up here, we’ve put our house on the market and we have our eyes on cooler climes.

It seems our time in San Miguel has spoiled us. We’ve lost our tolerance for heat and for driving around in cars. In San Miguel—with a climate often described as Eternal Spring—we were able to walk almost everywhere. There’s a different kind of social fabric that forms when you’re walking around, interacting with a wide swatch of your community—from shopkeepers to street sweepers. We crave that kind of community again.

And don’t even get me started on Rick Perry.

We’ve got a few places in mind for where we would go if our house sold. But I better not write them down at this point. One thing for sure in our lives is that we change our minds, so I wouldn’t want to confuse anything by writing down one city and then ending up in another—which has happened before (some of you may remember the 11th-hour Nashville-Austin switcheroo two years ago).

Of course, the boys’ school situation is of primary concern in our decision of where to move. I have to believe they’ll be fine—either taking classes on-line or via tutors or in a private or public school. Based on their performance in classes, on assessment tests, and in life so far, I have hope that they have a good foundation and will keep on track wherever we are as long as we’re together as a family, all of us tackling this education thing.

We’ll keep you posted on if and when and where we move. Until then we carry on as if no move is hanging in the air. We’ve made lots of moves and I’ve discovered that’s the only way to proceed. (I swear if I ever write another book, it’ll be called something like “Embracing Uncertainty.” Or maybe, “What the Hell Was I Thinking?” )

So why not get a puppy when you’re thinking of a major move? Somehow—even at 4:30 a.m. when you’re taking the puppy out to pee and you have a house showing the next morning—you manage.

HOW THE ONE-DAY-A-WEEK CLASSES WORK

So, the boys take a 2-hour class with a teacher, along with other homeschooled students. The teacher goes over new material (and in the case of science, the kids do lab work) and then gives assignments to be done through out the week based on the new material. The teacher is available via e-mail, phone and sometimes Skype to discuss any problems the kids are having with the material as they go through their assignments.

The boys sometimes have tests to be done at home that we monitor. They also have tests in class at various times, including mid-terms and finals.

For the days we’re at home, I used to have a schedule where I blocked off time for them to do assignments in particular subjects. Now, I just have a dry erase board on the fridge. I write down what they’re expected to do that day and they get to decide in what order they finish everything on the list.  We like this arrangement because it lets them work on self-discipline and time management. I think they like to have some control over their school lives–what a concept!

OUR CURRENT SCHEDULE (always subject to change–again the beauty of homeschooling)

MONDAY

9-11: Jeb, Life and Environmental Scien

11-1: Jeb, Middle School Writing

1-1:30: Jeb, Guitar

1:30-3:30: Gus, Writing I

3:30-5:30: Gus, Honors American Government

7-8: Jeb, Soccer

8-?: Mom, Wine Appreciation 101

TUESDAY

8:30-10:30: Gus, Geometry and Jeb, Algebra 1

10:30-1: Break, looking for community service or art class

1-3: Gus, pre-AP Chemistry

5-6: Gus, swim team

7-8:30: Gus, Boy Scouts

8:30-? Mom, Advanced Wine Appreciation

WEDNESDAY

Stay at home, work on assignments

THURSDAY

Stay at home, work on assignments

3:30-4:30 Gus, French

4:30-5:30: Jeb, French

5-6 Gus, Swim Teams

6:30-8, Jeb, Soccer

FRIDAY

9-10: Both, Spanish Grammar and Writing

Stay at home, work on assignments

PAR-TAY!

The opening spread of the Budget Travel story--Gus in the Ecuadorian rainforest.

Hi:

This is a story I wrote for Budget Travel about how to work a homeschooling-and-traveling plan with your kids and how to do it as inexpensively as possible.

Please feel free to pass this on to families who might be interested in doing the same.

All best and many thanks–Jeannie

http://www.budgettravel.com/feature/a-family-field-trip-around-the-world,7375

The beginning of the story.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cG_x1a6GSco

I’ve swam in a lot of bodies of water, but probably the most beautiful was the water in the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico. The beaches were great, but the coolest place to swim was the underground rivers.

We went to a nature park called Xcaret, where you could rent snorkeling gear and go through the underground rivers, which are also called cenotes. The cenotes were formed when the peninsula was lifted from the sea. There are 2,500 cenotes in the Yucatan. The Mayans called the cenotes, “dzonot,” and believed that cenotes were gates to the underworld.

It felt weird and scary being in the cenote because it was dark a lot of the time and when you looked down it was creepy. When the light came through holes in the roof the water was a really clear turquoise. It was really hot outside, but the water was cold. They said it was 75 degrees. I got used to it about halfway through the river.

At the end—before the river came to the ocean—we started to see a lot of colorful fish. The water there was a mix of fresh water and salt water.

After we came out of the river we went to snorkel at the beach. There we saw more fish and saw people walking on the bottom of the bay with helmets like in “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea.” I wanted to do that too, but it was too expensive.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=b4bB3HHUCG0

At our hotel, the Paraiso Maya, I saw a lot of animals that were wild and not in captivity, like iguanas and animals called coati. Coatis look like lemurs with long ringed tails, but are fatter, have longer noses and have big claws. The coatis were waiting for people walking between the pool and the beach, hoping to get food, even though a sign says you shouldn’t feed them. A few people fed them, me included.

I learned the hard way why they say not to feed them. One time I was the only one around and they were all coming toward me because I had food. One grabbed my leg and I had to push it away with my foot. Someone came by and told me that last year a girl had her finger bitten off. I can see how that could happen. One bit me on my finger, but it was a baby without teeth. That was lucky.

Another cool creature we saw was a tarantula. It was crawling on a path at one of the Mayan ruins we visited. It was huge and I thought it was awesome because its butt was orange. But in a way, I didn’t like it because orange is UT’s colors and I like Texas A&M.

Being in the jungle with the animals and the underground rivers was a great experience and I learned a lot too.

With Jeb in front of the pyramid at Coba. It's one of teh few Maya pyramids you can still climb.

What’s better than walking around Mayan ruins? Riding a bike around them. While we were in Mexico we got to visit two Mayan ruin complexes on the Yucatan Peninsula. One of them was on the sea and the other had a large pyramid you could climb.

The one with the pyramid was called Coba. Coba was a city that was dominant between two hundred and six hundred A.D. It supported 55,000 people at its peak–a massive amount for those times.

But pyramid climbing is not the only fun activity there. You could rent bikes and ride around the ruin complex. This is much quicker and more fun than walking. It also makes the heat less intense.

The pyramid there is very large, and from the top you could see for miles around. I am afraid of heights so it was a little scary for me. It wasn’t so much the heights or going up; it was coming down and having to look one hundred and thirty feet down steep steps.

The other ruin complex is called Tulum, situated directly on the sea. It served as a port for Coba at one time. It was at its height between the 13^th and 15^th centuries and survived for 70 years after the Spanish invaded the Yucatan. There are also a lot of iguanas and other small lizards that wander around the grounds.

The ruins at Tulum are different for three reasons. One, they are built on the sea. Two, they have a perimeter wall. And third, they do not have a large pyramid like Coba. All of these make it somewhat unique for Mayan ruins.

It is kind of strange to think that two civilizations across the ocean would both build pyramids (Mayans and Egyptians). Did aliens spread the idea, or did both cultures come up with these ideas separately?The Mayans made a lot of carvings of monsters. Could these be the aliens? Until we find the answers it’s up to you to decide.

Pretty steep, huh? And this is halfway down already.

Biking through the jungle at the Coba ruins was a great way to get around.

In front of the Maya ruins in Tulum, which are right above the beach.