We started our homeschooling up again last month. Yup, halfway through the summer. We even started on the holiday Monday of the August long weekend.

We’re soooooo mean.

When you think about it, though, there was really no reason not to. Other than the daily ten minutes of copywork (handwriting) that River dreads, she thoroughly enjoys everything else. She still gets annoyed that we don’t do school on weekends. I think she secretly suspects that I made weekends up.

For some reason, our days are just so much nicer when we do school. There’s less whining and less arguing – and not just from me but from the kids too. River gets excited about doing her lessons and Harbour suddenly becomes more interested in distracting her sister than in watching TV. And rather than being faced with a whole day to fill, I’m faced with a day where I wonder how I’m going to fit it all in.

Our homeschool days are actually pretty simple. We are heavily influenced by Charlotte Mason, a British educator that lived at the turn on the 20th century. Among other things, she advocated for short lessons where the students focus intensely but for limited amounts of time, with formal lessons ending in the early afternoon. She also recommended a lot of time outside.

Like a LOT.

Like 4-6 hours a day.

To be honest, there are days when getting outdoors for half an hour is a challenge – in fact, sometimes getting outside at all seems impossible, not just for me but for the girls too.

For years, River hated going outside. When she attended a Waldorf school at the age of 3, she was originally scheduled to be in class on Thursdays, the designated “hike days”.  On hike days, the kids spend the whole morning in the woods and it’s the most favourite day of all the children. Or so they told me. I warned the teachers that River wasn’t … super keen … on hiking. They quickly assured me that everyone loves hike days – even the kids who resist it at first. So I signed her up and was happy that soon I would have the nature-loving hippy child that I had always dreamed of.

About two months later, the teachers pulled me aside and asked if I would please switch River to another day because she was ruining hike day for all the other kids. I nodded my head and we all shared a knowing look – I’m certain they tried their best. Secretly though I was totally relieved. If even these amazing teachers couldn’t get my kid to embrace the outdoors, then it certainly wasn’t my fault. As a mother, I was officially let off the hook for having the world’s only kid who hates being outside.

Then last summer, at the age of 5, something changed: River fell in love with it all. She likes to climb trees. She likes to catch bugs. She likes to pick flowers. She LOVES going on hikes and will happily spend an hour in a forest drawing happy little trees in her nature journal.

And, of course, now my three year old wants none of it.

Suddenly Harbour hates the outdoors. She hates the hikes. She hates our backyard and runs to the safety of her bedroom as soon as we look the other way. Honestly, I just have to laugh at the entire situation – partly in good-natured defeat, partly because something in my brain has finally snapped and laughing a bit psychotically is the only response I’m capable of. Either way, I laugh and trust that as she gets older, she’ll learn to love the outdoors too.

And I think we did SO GOOD with going outside this summer. We went to splash pads, parks, wading pools, farms, petting zoos, hiking trails, berry patches, gardens full of lightning bugs – we even camped in my cousins backyard for a weekend.

That being said, the past four weeks have been rough. There have been stupidly hot days. There have been weeks where all three of us had a wicked cold. And of course there has been the whole last-month-of-pregnancy thing stealing all of my motivation. I’m trying not to let it bother me though. I try to focus on the days where we actually make it outside rather than dwell on the days that we don’t.

Like today! Today we made it outside. I saw the start of a trail I’ve never explored, Caleb’s Walk, so I asked the girls if they wanted to peak inside the Spoooooooky Forest. Of course, if I said “let’s go for a hike”, Harbour would scream no. If I said “let’s see where this goes”, Harbour would immediately throw herself to the ground in the sort of tantrum that makes three year olds legendary. But when I ask her to explore the Spoooooooky Forest, she was all for it.

It wasn’t my intention to go for a hike. I didn’t bring water or snacks or even a phone if I went into labour at the bottom of a trail. And normally I don’t just start hiking without a clue about how long the trail is or where it goes. I had only meant to peak in and maybe walk for a few minutes. But today my three year old had other plans.

You want to know how to snap kids out of bad moods? Forests. They are truly magical.

Anyway, we first walked down a gigantic hill. Half way down I realized that I was in trouble. The girls were going to freak out when it was time to climb up again and there was no way I’d be able to carry Harbour once she got tired, so as soon as we got to the bottom I told them that we had to turn around – except that they couldn’t hear me because there was a bridge over some water and they had to check it for trolls. And then they had to see where the boardwalk went. And then they had to run up another dirt path. After 20 minutes of walking, I got concerned. Well, more thirsty than concerned.

A father and daughter team passed by and I asked where the trail went – he said it looped around back to Churchill Park, which is what I figured. Then he warned me to go back since the trail was about to get narrow and unsteady, which I thought was good advice. Unfortunately my children disagreed with our combined parental wisdom they and ran on, leaving me and my enormous pregnant belly to stumble along behind them. At one point the path was insanely narrow with a steep drop on the side – I was glad to see that the man and his daughter were still nearby. Thankfully, the father had kept their pace slow so that if I got into trouble he could give me a hand. Or at least call an ambulance if my water broke.

When we cleared the trail and arrived at the much wider path of Ravine Road Trail, the other family took off at a much faster pace and I relaxed, knowing that our hike was almost done. Except that it wasn’t – we were only about half way back to the car. And the trail had different paths and sometimes I was just guessing at which way to go. Even short hikes feel like endless marches when you you have two young children, no water, and no idea of where you actually are. I didn’t worry too much though since there were suddenly far more people around. And it was such a beautiful walk – I can’t wait to go back and hike some more. I mean, “explore the Spooooooooky Forest”.

In the end we were outside for 2.5 hours today – still a far cry from the 4-6 hours that Charlotte Mason advocated. But we’re definitely getting better, and I’m looking forward to the day that Harbour loves being outside as much as River does. Which should be right around the time that our baby turns three and refuses to leave the air-conditioned house.