A lot has happened in 2020. It started with the eruption of Taal volcano then followed by the emergence of a pandemic, the COVID-19. Many people lost their jobs or loved ones. Many people were disrupted with the “new normal” and industries suffered. Schools closed down and adapted to the need of distance learning. In general, many people hated 2020. But we love ours.

A new bundle of joy

Our youngest member was born in April. She is a “pandemic” baby, being born during the height of the COVID-19. While we experienced some challenges before and after her birth, she is still worth everything. She made our 2020 lighter and better. My maternity leave was somewhat extended (until now) because of the work-from-home arrangement because of the pandemic. My husband has the same “extension” on his paternity leave. Aeda is our only child who experienced to have us around her while she’s developing. We see her milestones and we are able to guide her developments. We sometimes think that if we were like this during our first and second born’s developing period, could it be possible that they developed this fast? Aeda managed to develop her gross motor skills faster than her siblings.

Aeda made us realize a lot of things when it comes to parenting. She has brought so much joy to our family.

Stronger faith

It started in February when a staff of a Catholic shop told me to pray the rosary every day because I was already almost ready to pop. Without ado, I bought a rosary guide and a full-decade rosary. From then on, I prayed the rosary every day, praying for a safe delivery and a healthy baby. I also prayed to the Infant Jesus of Prague. When I delivered my baby, she was incubated due to tachypnea, a condition when a baby has faster breathing rate than normal. We prayed hard. I was recovering from my operation but I needed to care for my baby every 2-3 hours. I was begging the Lord to heal my baby and to give me enough strength to handle the situation. Miraculously, she was discharged at the same day as I was. I promised the Infant Jesus that I will be a devotee from then on.

Fast forward, our family got sick in August. I lost my smell and taste for 2 weeks, my husband go an asthma-like condition. All of us had colds or post-nasal drip. We really thought it was COVID but we were not tested that time. We started to pray the rosary and to the Infant Jesus together every night. We recovered after a month of sickness. We never missed a Sunday Mass since the lockdown happened. And as I listen to the homily of Manila Cathedral priests, I also learn something new about God. So I decided to hear the Mass daily. When Ria learned about it, she wanted to hear the daily Mass, too. So now, the whole family hears the Mass daily through Facebook Live. I can say that our faith became stronger than before.

A dream come true

This pandemic has made it possible for us to homeschool our kids. When Ria was in Kinder 2, I already explored homeschooling her but was discouraged because of my full time job. Now that schools were forced to do distance learning, we decided to just homeschool them. The effort is the same but the costs are way different.

We chose Charlotte Mason as our method of homeschooling the kids. Charlotte Mason’s philosophy in education circles on offering a feast, whether full or partial, to the children. It means that parents choose what to offer to the children, what subjects and topics to take. Ms. Mason believes that education should have “wide and liberal curriculum.” This is the reason why CM families usually take the classic way of educating the kids: world history, literature, arithmetic, natural science, values education, and even Shakespeare at an early age. The kids get to hear or read a lot of book every day but the books are not twaddle (or textbook-type, boring kind of books). The books we use are living books, which were written by experts in the subject in a story form. Amazingly, the kids can really recall the topics.

As we go along our homeschooling journey, we realize what the traditional school curriculum is lacking and how ineffective it is (or maybe a lack of topics?). I realized that when I teach my Year 4 child. She has been a consistent honor student, and yet there are topics that she still do not know or master. It may be just our expectations but we are convinced that we will be homeschooling them from now on.

As I teach the kids, I also learn. I learn a lot, actually. I realize how shallow my education was. How I could have developed my wisdom if CM was introduced to us when we were kids. But I still thank God for leading us to this direction. Thankful that the pandemic pushed us to homeschool our kids and discover an effective way of educating them. Our homeschooling journey also led me to know more about faith. I discovered a Facebook group where CM Catholic families exchange ideas. I was led to St. Augustine Academy Press where I saw a lot of Catholic books, mostly catechism books. We decided to use the religion curriculum of St. Augustine. As I read the books, I learn a lot about the Church, about the teachings of God, about the things that most Catholics do not know. And I believe that if all Catholics are given the same information, they would have stronger faith, too.

A stronger family relationship

Now that we are all staying at home, working and studying, I feel that this has brought us closer to one another, especially us to our kids. Yes, it is a struggle to keep a focused work time because the kids would constantly talk to us, ask us to do this and that, but we get to know them better. We get to correct them immediately. We get to discipline them properly. We are not depending on househelp’s way of disciplining our kids. We do our way, the way we want them to grow up.

We also do not have a househelper for almost 2 months already and this has led us to think of ways to work together in maintaining the household. We constantly change our schedules so we can find the right rhythm for all of us. The kids may complain most of the time because of the chores but we try to make them understand why we are like this and why we need to help each other. We also try to automate our chores as much as possible (a different post. haha).

We have more time to talk. My first born has been very open to us. She tells us how she feels, what she does not like (more of how we say things to her), what she wants, her plans, etc. And it feels so good that she can openly talk to us (more to my husband and that’s totally fine with me). Lastly, I thank them for being very forgiving even though I tend to be a “momster” most of the time because of the stress at work, at home and grad school. I am glad that our kids easily understand the circumstances that we are in (though there are times when they will repeatedly ask the same questions of ‘whys’).