Weekly Homeschool Report–October 11, 2009

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From where I sat this past week,

As an individual, I…

am exhausted.   I had several deadlines late in the week—classes ending, classes beginning, homeschool plans,  Sunday school plans—you name it.   Then there was a birthday party for the youngest at Build-A-Bear.   It all seemed to come crashing down on Saturday when I had just begun working at 9 p.m.   I finally finished around 4 a.m. this morning.   It’s gotten quite comical now, but I’m a decent enough typist until I can fall asleep typing and still form complete words—they just make absolutely no sense.    So, last night’s commentary to my students was, in a word, interesting.  This is not the first time that has happened, and I suspect that I’ve probably not caught all of my “typed-up dreams,” shall we say, but so far, no one has come back to me with something that sounds like “Huh?”   Today I don’t have as much to do, and I’m looking forward to seeing bedtime before the sun starts to rise.

Given the lateness (or the earliness, dependent upon how you look at it) of my rest, I missed church today.   I didn’t even hear everyone leave, although I remember when they woke up.   The superhero taught alone, and did a tremendous job, according to himself (smile) and our daughter.   I called him right after the class would have ended to find out how things went with our new co-teacher; I felt bad about leaving him alone.   He said that she sat quietly through class, asked after me to be sure I was okay, and then left.   I’ve been wondering, is it bad to be happy that people don’t slow down to speak with you?   I could look at it as prayer changing things.   Then again, maybe she reads my blog.   Uh-oh.

Still no workouts, sadly enough.   Looks like our Wii is needing a repair, and thankfully, before the warranty is up.   As we’ve come into a season of more, I’ve been constantly praying against unexpected repairs that have a tendency to eat away our increases.

Editorial comment several hours later: Wii fixed w/ a cleaning of months of accumulated dust.   Thanks, God.

As a wife and homemaker, I…

Need desperately to engage our children more in taking a part in the housework.   When I get really busy, this house begins to look crazy, and I know that some part of that is that the kids don’t clean much outside of their own selfishness unless they are told to.   The six-year-old is a one-woman wrecking crew that I need to fine tune my training with, teaching her to clean up messes as she makes them.    She loves to write, and leaves lists everywhere—to-do lists, lists of songs, lists of imaginary doll ailments that she’ll have to play doctor and repair.   The homeschooling, adoring side of me thinks, “Aaaaawwww, a planner just like Mommie.   I should collect these and store them somewhere.  They’ll be fun memories for later.”   The part of me that wants to sit without a lot of clutter surrounding me is just plain annoyed.   When I’m tired, this side takes over, and with an unbridled tongue, I have a clean house, but hurt feelings.   This leads me to one of my favorite points of reflection, what type of mom I want to be.   I have friends who make their kids pick up every single thing immediately after they use it.   Their homes are always immaculate, and for that, I envy them.   Yet, I don’t desire the means to get to that end—too much yelling, too much tiptoeing around, and, I think, not enough focus on fun and frolic.   Our home is just that—a home, not a museum, right?   Yet, there are realities to the home life as opposed to the museum life.   Our home always looks like we are in the middle of something (and we usually are).   It’s never ready for surprise guests, and, as I mentioned when I started all of this, I get sick of being inspector #5 all the time, with the “unsatisfactory” stamp being the key that gets people moving.   Right now, I sit in the family room with NFL games in the background, while the six-year-old’s tennis shoes lay in the middle of the floor, 2-3 writing projects are between the floor and the coffee table (along with crayons and pens), and on the chaise lounge is a small hourglass (what’s that about?)  Of course, a good night’s sleep could change my whole outlook on this situation.

As a mom and homeschooling parent, I…

am still in our now 9-week long honeymoon, although we’ve had momentary dips into the day-to-day reality of life and learning.    I often ask my adult students about character/ personality traits for success, and whether they are innate or the function of training.    I am convinced that there are innate personality traits that can break us in spite of how much good, right, and otherwise we try to nurture.   If I use myself as an example, for all the many gifts and talents God has placed in me, I have a tendency toward “analysis paralysis.”    If I’m unfamiliar with a task, it can take me forever too do it.   Even when the Lord says do it very clearly and sends his angels as the confirmed witnesses, I will drag and drag.   A huge part of this is because the act of sitting quietly, thinking it through, and then moving forward often doesn’t happen amidst the ever-urgent “Mooooom!” and “Honey, would you…?”    So with this revelation, I worked with the kids this week to battle a demon I see cropping up here: procrastination.    I stated at the beginning of this year that much of our work would be dedicated toward the intangibles to the older two, and that is the harder work than completing x pages in said book/ notebook, for sure.    This past Friday, all the kids wanted to accompany me to Wal-Mart, etc., although I knew I would have moved much faster alone, and they needed to complete school and enjoy the busy weekend.   I gave in, and we slushed through the store and torrential rains, ran a couple of other errands, and waited for pizza in the middle of flash flooding.   By the time we got home, we were in a time crunch to finish the work that I told them had to get done before dance team practices.   That didn’t happen.    Into Saturday we go.   The oldest wanted to tag along for the birthday party, and she was a tremendous help.   Our son claimed he couldn’t find his book.   So now, everyone’s working on Saturday evening to complete Friday’s work.   The problem (outside of me being too nice in letting them go to the store in the first place)?   HBO’s new movie was Marley and Me, and we all got interested enough to watch it twice.   (The movie, by the way, has a few bad words and a couple of adult content moments, but it portrayed, with a decently realistic eye, the seasons in a marriage as a nice backdrop to the main story of a dog who went from incorrigible to invaluable.   The adult content is the couple’s efforts to be intimate, with the dog’s ever-constant eye on them each time.   My husband laughs that he first saw this movie on an airline while traveling for work, and amidst his own tears, he was tickled at the other “manly men” wiping their eyes and trying not to wrinkle suit shirts with their tears).   The kids still managed somehow to finish.   When I saw the oldest go to Sparknotes.com today to get an overview of The Iliad for herself and line out her confusion of who’s on what side of the fight, I thought, perhaps some good came out of all my prayer and preaching.

Jimmie posted a great article on Heart of the Matter online on reading journals.   I think it will help me with some of my own projects, and I think our son would make good use of it.   He’s been keeping up with us on Homer and reading D’aulaire’s Greek Mythology on the side.    His love for mythology has been a huge help to us when we get stuck on the interaction of the various gods and goddesses (there’s so much more of this going on than when I watched Brad Pitt and Orlando Bloom tell the Hollywood version–smile)   I smile as I see our son read through D’aulaire; I, too, once loved Greek mythology, but dust has settled on my remembrance of many of the lesser gods.

As a business owner, I…

have begun edits on the elementary series.   I’m also proceeding with a unit study on scientists and inventors.    Articles are showing up on other sites, and I continue to be blessed by so many encouragers.   Thanks to you all.

  May the Lord bless your week as well.