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Rare Disease Day at A.I. duPont Hospital for Children

Home educators are hyper diverse. Each family has its own reasons for choosing to take full ownership of their child(ren)’s education. Within multi-child homes, there are varieties of reasons for choosing the lifestyle, or not choosing it as some siblings attend brick-and-mortar schools. Temporally, the reasons may change as children and family dynamics grow.

My personal journey evolved from not knowing the words “unschooling” or “deschooling” to being a cheerleader of these approaches.

Illness can be one of the saddest reasons a family chooses to home educate. Not only do these families bear the burden of a child with compromised health, but they often take on the responsibility of educating that child. It was a world I hardly knew about before joining the home ed community.

Rare diseases are an extra burden as families have to navigate uncharted territories, at home and in health care.

Today will be a learning experience for us. We will learn humility. We will learn about pain. We will learn about how blessed we are for the health we have. We will learn hope. We will learn about the strength of children and families and the human soul.

The most important learning is uncomfortable. It must kill old beliefs and renew them like the Phoenix from the ashes.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Delaware Fun-A-Day 25: In Space No One Can Hear You Spring

Tried to build a spaceship and got a space flower.

I grew up on #Lego space sets. Grey, white, and blue were my primary colors. The introduction of a line of black ships with yellow highlights was a thrill, but my tastes were already changing. I had completely shifted to comic books by the time the first green space suit showed up.

Now that I’m building again with my sons, I’m continually drawn to these “new” colors. I’ve never been talented with color choice and coordination. I love pushing into that arena, trying out combinations and playing with the craziest colors. The colors inspire new shapes and designs, testing my building skills.

My mind is still out there. Star Trek, Farscape, 2001: A Space Odyssey, Blade Runner, The Fifth Element, Enemy Mine, and Alien permeate my creativity. It’s the landscape in which I explore my own mind.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Delaware Fun-A-Day “Break”

We’ve been building like crazy, almost too fast to update the blog!

Today we visited the Route 9 Library and Innovation Center and spent a little time in their Lego Room.

We tried speed building in a space theme. We each knocked out four fun sculptures.

I got into my comfort zone, creating various spaceships. I also forgot to take individual pictures of two of the builds.

Isaac, 8, chose tan for varied builds from an alien dog to a moon bunker.

Westen, 10, was the most eclectic of us in color and design with a space flight training facility, space taxi, transport ship, and deep space probe.

Libraries are where we started our Lego journey years ago. There’s a special satisfaction in building and walking away, wondering who might play with or modify your creation.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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No Losing, Just Learning

Someone tried to step on this child’s dreams this weekend.

It nearly broke my heart.

This morning I watched this match from Sunday. Westen’s opponent is bigger and stronger. He has an advantage position early on that leveraged his weight against Westen’s.

Westen’s skill and speed are significant in his game, but he’s got deeper qualities that make him unstoppable through wins and losses.

He doesn’t give up, he doesn’t stop believing in the win, he doesn’t stop working. After physically and mentally crushing losses he’s asked, “When’s the next tournament?” He doesn’t know how to lose, he only knows how to learn. And damn if he doesn’t learn quickly.

I’m sure he was listening to the other coach (I was standing behind him, his voice is clear on the video). We’ve noticed that kids will follow coach instructions literally and immediately, giving Westen an easy way to predict the next opening.

But it’s not tactics that give Westen this win. It’s the opponent’s coach. “Not that, don’t do that, oh, don’t do that,” with laughter from the sideline. This kid’s lifeline, the one thing he trusted to get him the win, laughing and giving up. Westen’s a shark hungry for hesitation and indecisiveness. He uses his speed to take a stronger position (one he says he’s never tried), then slows down to work the breath out of his opponent. He takes his little frame and presses every ounce of it deep into the earth, planting his foe beneath him. By the time he losses his balance and the kid gets up, Westen is watching the him turn blue and silently praying he’ll tap.

It’s a brutal exercise, to play a game that is more real than any other I know. I can’t help but think that his body was acting out against the person who tried to muscle his dreams away. He may not have the tools to verbally justify a dream that would be impossible for an earlier generation, but he has the heart, potential, and work ethic to overcome seemingly insurmountable opposition.

To the point on coaching: Kevin from Elevated Studios has coached both boys in competition and his style is so right for them. He’s soft spoken, minimalist in direction, only talks about the next move, and trusts. They know it and trust him back. His tone is even and he never betrays a lack of confidence in the chance for a win.

I needed this video. I forget that my sons don’t need me barking out every move or deriding their mistakes. They need my trust and love. They are powerful on their own. If I’m a quiet, trusting coach, no one can crush them. They can’t lose, they can only learn.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Delaware Fun-A-Day 13: Battlebots Arena

The youngest Zerbey strikes again!

I need brainstorming notes, verbal planning, external inspiration, piles of sorted elements to decide on colors, and all types of prep to get going on a build.

At eight years old, Isaac simply builds. He saw a Youtube video of a show I loved, Battlebots, and ran with the idea of the tank-shaped bot. I loved it and suggested an arena, offering to help build it. “I got a plan, Dad.” Then he went into a trance and threw this scene together (big brother was recruited for the referee, he’s the resident minifigure expert).

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Z3 Adventures: 3 Dog Garage

I’m not a “car guy” in the classic sense. I love attending everything from drag racing on the beach or asphalt to monster trucks and NASCAR races, but I don’t know makes, models, and history.

That’s why it was such a thrill to be among experts at 3 Dog Garage today. Many of the cars on display have raced and some currently still do. There’s an energy in a building full of beautiful machines and art with hardly a dividing line between the two.

With polite requests, my sons were allowed to sit in a few of these gorgeous beasts.

The neon sign came from a restaurant in California and was a stunning highlight of the third floor gallery.

I was impressed by Ross Myers’ library and dreamed of having something similar one day.

Myers’ first car became his national award winner, “First Love.” It’s accented by this powerful symbol of love throughout the design.

I’m intent on finding the artist responsible for the pop art pieces featuring Audrey Hepburn, Elvis, Steve McQueen, and Marilyn Monroe. They are fun, inventive, and hold lots of exciting surprises.

On par, we were nearly the last group out of the museum. It’s a rare treat to visit this special place and we squeezed all we could out of it.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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My Best Valentine’s Day

And I’m taking all the credit.

Not long ago I was afraid of my passion for life. It started with sadness and crying. I bottled up these inconvenient things and subsequently made myself more shallow across the emotional spectrum.

It took widowhood and parenting two boys who had lost their mother for me to embrace the depth of my pain. I did it for them at first, to model acceptance that it was okay to be sad. I learned that I was to find myself again in those deep, dark places.

Grief took its turns dragging me down into the black and I recognized a greater light each time it let me up for air.

The sun shines brighter on this day than any before it because I know how dark the night can be.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason

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Delaware Fun-A-Day: Open Loveshop

#ItAintAWorkshop

Today we expanded our Delaware Fun-A-Day project to include other homeschoolers and friends. We opened up our Lego Loveshop to showcase those who share our passion for the learning lifestyle.

Nothing was finished today, but much was started.

I look forward to sharing more creations as February progresses.

God bless and thank you for reading,

Jason