We're All Laughing...

…and crying.

You know, words cannot express what it is to be a home schooling parent.  Just in the same way that no one can prepare you for parenthood, no one can exactly prepare you for what it will be like to be a home schooling family.  I read all sorts of books before my first child was born on how to prepare for parenthood.  When the moment finally came, I was flabbergasted.  Every moment to the next I dealt with the facts of life for which no one could have prepared me.  That is what home schooling is like.

To this date I have read probably six books that explain home schooling methodology.  The great consensus seem to be building up the confidence of the parents.  They also lay out arguments for home schooling to be the greatest good.  These tenants of home schooling are true.  The rest of the methodology is merely finding a plan that works well within your family dynamic.  Or as I have found, it is about finding something that works for now, because the children are busy growing in and out of developmental phases.  My job is to maximize the childrens' learning potential within their particular developmental phase.  As soon as I have mastered one phase someone is moving into another, or getting left behind...

Today, was one of those days in which I was doing everything right, yet everything was going wrong.  I made one critical mistake this morning.  I allowed the children to watch T.V. before school today.  This never turns out well.  For some reason if they watch T.V. in the morning they are a mess for school.  I knew this, but I was having a slow start this morning, so I let it go.  The rest of the day was war.  School took extra long.  It was painfully drawn out.  Everything would be going fine and then someone would get sidetracked.  I could not keep up with Annie's mischief.  I would blink and something bad would be going down.  

Paint came out when I blinked.  However, I succumbed.  What could go wrong?  I was there to aid and monitor.  Everything went fine, until Annie decided she finished her picture and then she dumped her paint water all over everything.  That's about the time Mommy lost her cool.  School was dragging out and there was paint on the carpet.  I was done with all the mischief and the crying and the what have you.

School finished late in the afternoon after having begun at 9:20 a.m.  The children were free to play.  I began dinner preparations.  The children were in the open living room.  I could hear them playing.  It sounded benign.  I finished dinner prep.  I asked Alex to come to the kitchen to have a long-needed haircut.  He said he couldn't because he was cutting Kristiana's hair.  I said, you mean you are cutting with the play scissors, not real scissors.  He announced, no it was real scissors.  Aaaagggh! Noooooo! I spoke loudly and firmly, not yelling.  I explained that he knew better, because he had done this before.  He was punished and sent to sit on his bed.  He was crying.  

I came to him a little later and asked why he had done that.  He said he was trying to help her, because her bangs were so long she couldn't see.  They are long and she can't see unless I pull her hair back, but we were growing them out.  It's not even a fixable haircut.  Someday her hair will recover from brother haircuts.  My hair recovered from sister haircuts when we were little.  He still should have known not to cut her hair.  It was sweet of him to be thinking of her.

It was just icing on the cake of a mischievous day.  We had laughing, crying, pudding and haircuts.  Then I burned off some steam at the gym…then an after workout cocktail.  Tomorrow is another day.  It will be better.  I'm not going to allow T.V. ;-)

Recess! Alex has learned how to fly while swinging.

I should have known she was up to no good.  This is how home school began. (Notice something?)

Kitty in a purse