Boundaries, boundaries, boundaries....

COM met again today. I (obviously) can't say much about what went on - but I will say this:
1. Boundaries, people. If you are in ministry, and don't understand the concept, get help. Please. For your own sake and for the sake of Christ's church.
2. COM is exhausting and energizing at the same time. I am tired, yet satisfied that the decisions we made today, while hard in many cases, will bring healing and hope to troubled pastors and congregations. Or at least have the potential to assist in bringing healing and hope. Actually bringing it is Jesus' job, I guess - so I won't claim any committee is doing it.
3. The church needs polity geeks like me. This is a part of my calling - and the energizing part of my day comes from knowing my gifts are being well used in this work.
4. My sympathies to any who have served or will serve on COM in larger presbyteries. We only have 23 churches in my presbytery - something like 27 actively serving ministers of Word and Sacrament and maybe 6-8 minister members-at-large (like me). There are presbyteries with over 100 churches - I don't know how those COM's can function.

Other notes:
1. C. learned a new trick yesterday - which I think took about 3 years off my life the first time she did it. She has figured out how to climb up the climber/slide we have in our backyard. The platform is about 3 feet off the ground - and she scales the mini-rock-climbing side to get up. And then goes down the slide half on her back and half on her butt. It is quite cute, actually - and she is so, so, so proud of herself - now that I am reasonably sure she can do it without falling off and killing herself.
2. We are settling back into our normal routine. Having my mom and aunt here last week really threw us off. Not that I didn't want them to come - but my girls are so sensitive to any change in their environment - positive or negative - that having visitors in Holy Week was really hard and resulted in many nights of frequent wakings. M. especially is affected by this - and we learned that she is now too big to come to bed with us, as she kicked (by accident - she was tossing and turning) W. in a very sensitive spot at 2 a.m. one night. Oops. Potential downside of co-sleeping. No lasting damage to W. or M. - and we are now back to sleeping normally. Thank God. (I need my sleep).
3. I am excited about the potential for new friends here - in the spouses of 2 newer members of the presbytery who are also in my general area and have young kids. I am hoping we can start a playgroup or something soon for time to get to know each other. It would be so nice to have friends here who I don't have to do the "pastor's wife who is also a pastor" dance with.
4. Having my mom closer has brought up so much emotional junk - we are in the process of re-negiotiating our relationship, and that is tiring. It is going well - she has made the decision to intentionally seek out a church home that is not W's church so she has some separation from us - and we are all (well, the adults anyway) aware of the need to set healthy patterns, etc. now - but still, exhausting. And yet, I am reminding myself through this process of the many ways I choose to be me - not my mother - and that is good. And I have the opportunity to have an adult relationship with her - she did not get this with her mother (my grandmother died when I was 3 1/2 years old). And it is a gift.
5. We are continuing to discern where we will put M. in school. I am waiting for a call back from the woman who did IQ and achievement testing for her to set up an appointment to go over the test results. I could write a short book on our decision to go ahead and do testing now - but I am not sure if anyone is interested. If you are, leave a comment and I will write more about it. So we are waiting to get those results - but I am still pondering. The public schools are transitioning to a different gifted program - aimed to really target the top 3-5 % of kids - instead of the broader, high achievement program they currently have (which aims to target the top 15-20% of kids). There are all sorts of issues in this, which I won't delineate now so as not to bore you to tears, but the end result is that I am not sure I can trust the public schools to meet M.'s needs. And she will be starting school right in the middle of this big change in program - not sure if I have the energy to put into being her advocate through that with an un-tested program. (And I hope that doesn't sound too snotty - I don't mean to be - I'm just trying to honestly feel out where I can put my energy) Charter schools are another option here - and there are some really good ones that I would be happy to have her in - ones that use proven methods of differentiated instruction (which means that the teachers teach kids in small group at their level - so the slower learners aren't left in the dust and the faster learners aren' t bored to tears - it takes very dedicated teachers to do this, but when done well the results are very much worth it). However, the charter that would be our first choice based on distance (we would have to provide transportation, so distance is an issue to consider) had 150 applicants for 10 kindergarten spots last year. The other options have similar numbers. So, I am hesitant to plan on that - too much uncertainty. (that's my inner J asserting itself, I think). Private schools are simply too expensive, unless I suddenly found a great paying job - which is not too likely (there will be some ministry jobs open up in the next few years here that would be doable from a location standpoint, but none would meet the "great paying" requirement). So, it is looking more and more like homeschooling may be the best option.
6. This (homeschooling) fills me with terror and joy, in alternating and equal measure. We have already decided that I will start to do "kindergarten" with M. 2 days a week in the fall. She will be in pre-school 2 days a week, at a new school. The new school teaches phonics in her class and basic math - some academics mixed with lots of hands-on and free-play time. I really and truly believe M. is ready for that and will thrive there. She will go on Tuesdays and Thursdays for 2 1/2 hours each day. Mondays and Wednesdays I will do "school" with her at home - for kindergarten, this means about 10 - 15 minutes of reading (her to me), similar time for math, a few minutes of handwriting (which she actually already does on a regular basis of her own initiative - she will happily sit for 20-25 minutes at a stretch and ask me to spell words out for her to write down.) and as much reading aloud of various books (novels, science books, etc.) as we can manage. I would love to also do art and something for music and science experiments and a study of world cultures - but those will wait until I make sure we aren't going to kill each other with the basics. I am thinking that the basics will be an hour or so a day - we will see how much time we want to fill with other pursuits.

And now, it is quite late, so I will post and then sleep. More to come.....