A Real Juggling Act

I really hesitated to begin a blog, especially one that had a label of home school within it. The truth is, while all looks rosy in a blog , life is not always as it appears. I know I have read my share of blogs and compared our schooling, which really is not beneficial nor does it even has any correlation as each home school is unique as each family.

For starters, we don’t get out of the house nearly as much as it may seem in this blog and some days rather than schooling within our nice neat room, I school off the couch as it is more comfortable or cannot resist sitting there instead as it is just cozier with the sun streaming in. Also I have good intentions to uphold our starting time and realize the girls have gotten "stuck" doing their chores. They obey and do what they are told, but also get side tracked by letting the rabbits loose in the horse barn and other such maneuvers while feeding all the animals. Consequently, we have a few good habits to enforce and for me as well, as those few extra quiet moments are heavenly.

So, for entertainment purposes here is a further glimpse of some of the things that have occurred at our Home Life Academy this past month. For one, life and death seem to be an obsessive topic. That’s right, in the middle of a perfectly lovely lesson on a Thornton W Burgess book, the girls keep bringing up the topic of our dead horse, in detail I might add. Allowing a bit of time to process this, we finally move on and they interject how our next horse we attempted to purchase went blind! Yes, this is true. Youngest daughter begins to cry and laments how she still wants him and do I recall that last month we read a wonderful story on Louis Braille? I do, but back to Burgess, please!

Next, I announce math time and both daughters groan loudly and slip off to grab a snack. I go ahead and submit to their plans knowing they will be happier mathematicians if I allow tummies to be filled first. On their way out of the school room, the Math U See blocks are dumped leaving over 100 math bars of various colors and sizes scattered on the floor mingling with all the primacolor pencils that were tumbled about during read aloud time. From a distance, I hear the youngest asking the oldest what "viagra" and "libido" mean again as she did not quite understand the responses we gave her over dinner hour the previous evening. Obviously this is a result of viewing television commercials. No, being parent is not for cowards as the oldest has just said, "You better go ask mom."

I think to myself, if they were in public school there would be no need to come ask Mom. Though perhaps still best to get the facts from a parent rather than some child busily picking their nose. No offence meant toward the public school or the child with the nose issue as I am a happy product of the public school system. It was just a fleeting thought of a clean house, an ability to nap and a few more conversations with a real live adult from time to time. It’s a swift thought though, as I’ve done the public school stunt as well with my oldest and it is not as easy as it sounds or cost effective either in spite of our tax dollars at work.

So, glancing at my watch, I realize we are behind a few subjects when Grandparent #1 decides that Home Ec is going to occur in 45 minutes from now and rather than eating snack, lunch would have been more appropriate. Grandparent #2 has figured out that #1 is coming and they will not visit now due to this. I end up feeling guilty for just being me. This is all without mentioning the necessary vacuum job, a doctor’s phone call and the 2 loads of laundry thrown in between grammar and spelling lessons that are still not finished. Top that off with a phone call from my son whom has seemingly locked his keys in his van at a convenience store down town. This is not the first time to put it bluntly.

Consequently, I am giving you this little bird’s eye view of our life and times so that no one in the home schooling world gets the impression that all is perfect here. It is not, and it is often a real juggling act, but we always seem to get the job done some how and most days are much more in orderly and academic than this. The one thing we can always count on is that every day is different and most days our fumbles fill us with memories of smiles and giggles along with the groans so I count my blessings we are still continuing on here. There is rarely a dull moment.....