So if you’re not really into what has now inadvertently become book week here at the Chino House, well, I’m terribly sorry.  You can tune back in next week and see if I have anything more clever to say.  Or you can read Bob’s blog from Sundance instead.  For now, I am immersed.  I thought about trying to be all organized in 2009 and have a recipe on Fridays, a book on Mondays, something trivial from my life on Wednesdays…but I just can’t do it.  Too much pressure.  Maybe one day.

For now, there is just the glut of books.  Not that we only read books this past week at my sister’s house.  Oh no, we watched about 16 hours of inauguration coverage.  And we watched Mamma Mia! I have two things to say about that movie.  The first is that the cast of that film had entirely too much fun making it and I’m extremely jealous of their getting to flit about in the Greek Isles being silly for who knows how long…and get paid for it!  And the second, is that upon reflection I have decided that I was totally ripped off with regards to both my mother’s dress and behavior on the eve of my wedding.  I will be keeping my eye out for an outfit that will be fitting enough for the redo.  And if I can’t get her to wear it and sing Super Trouper or Dancing Queen for me in the next couple of decades, well there’s always Mary Polly’s wedding to save it for.  I am already thinking that I will have to enlist both the dramatic and Melany Shelton for the occasion.

And after those extremely intelligent comments, it’s back to book week.

So today’s book was sent to me by a friend out in Oregon.  It’s called Going Public and it’s all about sending your children to public school.  The wondrous detail in the story of my friend’s sending me this book is that her kids go to private school.  And her husband teaches at the same private school.  So how great that she would applaud and support me on my public school journey, and to continue to send my son off each morning to catch the Yellow Prison of Propulsion. (That’s what Ida B calls the school bus.)    Even better, this book is not a guilt trip about how we should all be going to public school.  It is instead about the journey of two parents who have sent their eight children to public school.  Reading their stories has encouraged me.  They’ve reminded me of why we chose public school in the first place and of what it can look like to be on your child’s team as they negotiate the bumps along the way.  I loved reading about the different times they took more children in than just their own, sometimes for a day, sometimes to live.  How they chose to go to a school that not everyone necessarily wanted to go to, and how they got to see God’s faithfulness in that place.

Fortuitously, when I got the call to come up to school and get Cole a couple of weeks ago, I was in the middle of a chapter about encounters with administration.  The title, Being Nice.  A simple but frequently forgotten concept when we find ourselves fighting for our kids.

The storytelling of this couple makes me want to be a better parent of public school kids instead of making me feel bad for the terrible job I’m doing.  And let’s be clear.  I’m willing to admit that I have failed in many ways.  I just don’t need a book to help me beat myself over the head about it.  I can do that just fine all on my own thank you very much.

The first thing I am attempting to implement from reading this book was the gentle reminder that if we’re sending our kids off into the world every day, then it might be a good idea to equip them with something greater than themselves.  Of course you expected them to say that, but it’s not all holier than thou or anything.  They are just…well, here’s what we did.  Ironically, I was so much better about consistently teaching my kids from the Bible while they were homeschooling.  But now that they aren’t at home, they need it more right?  It seems obvious, and yet I am much more concerned with what goes in their bellies in the mornings  than into their hearts.

I also appreciated a whole chapter on submitting to authority.  They told a story about their daughter’s missing out on playing basketball for an entire season because she turned in a permission slip late.  The decision seemed very extreme, and they pushed on it a little bit, but were met with resistance and so decided to submit to the administration.  They carried their submission out through the entire year, choosing not to bash the school’s administration in front of their kids over the long drawn out season of their daughter’s being excluded from playing.  As they detailed their gracious response to this situation, I was struck by what a gift it is to give our children the example of how to respond to authority with grace, even when we might not agree with everything the person in authority is doing.  They pointed out that this is a lesson that will serve our children all through life as it is certainly probable that they will remain under the authority of people who are less than perfect (even their Mama) as they grow into adults.