New Year's Revolution

People tend to make the same resolutions year after year: lose weight, get organized, exercise, etc.  And every December, we tend to look at our failures of the past year and vow to turn it around next year and really, really keep the resolutions this time.  I'm no different.  For the past several years I have determined in December several areas in which I should improve, for example, to declutter my home and be more consistent with our formal homeschooling.  And for the past several years I got to the next December and realized that I hadn't attained my goal the way I envisioned, so I felt bad and resolved to do better the next year.  Well, this year I have decided to be more positive.  I am spending my energy focusing on the steps I have made toward my ideals, and I am reminding myself that having perfection as a goal necessitates failure.  So, I am allowing myself to be human and count steps in the right direction as success.  And I don't need to beat myself up and resolve to change my ways tomorrow.  It's a new year, but really, it's just another day in the journey.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thanksgiving week is a crazy time in my house. Yes, crazier than normal.  I try to get everything prepped and ready in advance for a full day's worth of family gatherings by spreading out the prep over several days, while taking breaks for diaper changes, feeding kids, and sanity.  This year, I also planned a few out of the house things for myself (Dr. appointment, hair cut) and so I am trying to spread things a little more.  What does this have to do with homeschooling? Well, not too much, if you consider the homeschooling to be only the time when the kids are practicing phonics, calculating sums or products, memorizing poetry, or reading about ancient Egypt.  But that's not all there is to homeschooling.

With homeschooling, all of the things kids would learn at school and all of the things they would learn at home get mixed together.  Some days, we are heavy on the book learning and afterwards we all veg in front of the tv and don't learn any of the home-type stuff.  Other times, like Thanksgiving week, we are (very) light on the book work and heavy on the home learning stuff - time management, home ec, interpersonal relationships, and legos.  (Yes, legos.  You are learning a lot when you build with legos.  You can read some discussion about this here, here, here, or here.  Plus they're fun.)  In years past, I have felt guilty about "letting the schoolwork slide"  during times when I just needed more time for other things, but I am trying a new perspective this year.  I am trying to remember that not everything a child needs to learn can be found in a book, and it doesnt make me a poor mom or teacher if we choose to focus on one aspect over the other in any given week.  Next week, we may focus on reading and writing to the exclusion of all else, and I won't feel guilty about that, either.

I am thankful for my children and I'm thankful for this chaotic time in which to show them it's okay to prioritize so you don't make yourself crazy.  I'm thankful that we will all be able to enjoy this time without the pressure of trying to get EVERYTHING done.  I'm thankful for this chance to show them that some things are more important than the schedule.  And I'm thankful for legos.

Testing 1-2-3

Here's a question I get asked pretty regularly:  Do you test your kids every year?  I'll answer based on my experience - homeschooling elementary aged children in TN.  The answer will be different in high school, and it can be different in different states.

In short, no. We don't test every year.  Whether or not and how often you are required to test depends on how you register to homeschool.  I think that what people are really wanting to know when they ask this is "How are you held responsible for what you teach and what your kids learn in the year?" 

Good question.  I have one in return: who decides what is enough learning?  In which subject areas?  If your child attends a public school, the answer is easy: the state has set standards for what should be taught during the year.  If your child attends a private school, it's up to the school.  They can choose whether they want to adhere to state standards.  If you are homeschooling, it's up to you.
Homeschoolers who are signed up with the LEA (local education agency - the public school system)  have to have their kids tested when the state tests school kids (think tcap), so they'll want to make sure their children are prepared to take the test.  Whether or not they work a lot on it and worry about how well their children perform on it is a matter of choice. 
Homeschoolers who are signed up through a CRS (church-related school) test when the school requires it.  This may be the same as what the state requires, more often than the state, or not at all. 
Kay Brooks explains it well here.

As far as day-to-day learning, which I think is the real point of this question, nobody checks in on us.  We do have to report attendance, (4 hours per day, 180 days per year) but nobody is going to ask us exactly what we do each day.  The LEA or CRS will usually ask questions about what subjects we teach and how we plan to teach each subject in order to ensure that we have put some thought into what we are doing.


There is a high level of personal responsibility here.  As a mom, I know that I want my children to do well, and as a homeschooler I get to choose what they are working on and how.  Yes, this can be rather anxiety provoking, (Am I doing this right? Am I ruining my kids' education?)  but it is also pretty liberating (You don't understand this? Let's go more in-depth and spend more time on it.  You already know this?  Let's skip it!). 
And if you are concerned that there might be children whose parents are not doing anything with their kids, well, it probably happens sometimes.  Just like there are kids in school who don't learn anything, and there are bad school teachers.  For the most part, homeschooling parents are just like you: we want the best for their kids and work hard to provide it.

What do you do all day? (Or, why does your house look like the business end of a latrine?)

Several times I have wondered how I stay busy all day and at the end of it, nothing is done.  And I am exhausted - too tired to do anything after the kids are in bed besides watch Grey's Anatomy on Netflix and consume chocolate.  I'm never too tired for chocolate.  So I have thought "I should write down everything I do in the day as I do it, then I will see where I can be more efficient."  Yes, I do realize that is a bit ambitious, overly self-critical, and well, stupid.  But I woke up Tuesday morning and had the thought first thing in the morning (before I finished my coffee so, you see, I wasn't in my right mind),  and I got started.  I started at the top of a piece of notepaper, the kind that comes on a magnetic notepad for making grocery lists on the side of the fridge.  I filled four pages.  I wrote down EVERYTHING I did.  Are you interested?  I'll have to skip some, because really, you don't want to know all that.


8:00  awake, nursing
8:25  up, coffee, email
8:33  empty the dishwasher
8:39  potty break, then Flylady's swish and swipe (see, I do clean!)
8:54  remove The Well Trained Mind from the bathroom because really, no matter how long I leave it on the shelf in there, I am not going to find time to read it anytime soon

8:57  wash face, get dressed (I told you I wrote down everything)
9:00  wake K & E
9:05  start laundry, fill dishwasher

9:15  wake E again
9:17  make breakfast for K while writing today's to do list

9:22  send K up for E
9:24  go up myself to tell E to get out of bed.
9:32  call. E. again.

9:34  make my breakfast to include photographing my smoothie (want to see it?) while getting E to eat, K to clear his dishes from the table, and both to stop fighting over cat duties.  (or doodies, however you want to look at it.)
 9:54  eat and facebook

strawberry, blueberry, banana, and kale

10:05  Z awake (a note: this is not typical.  he had a rough night.)
10:15  change and feed Z, get K started on schoolwork
10:25  nurse Z

10:35  tell E to start school but then let her listen to more of her playaway instead, then clean pee off the floor because Z put his leg up on the racetrack like he had the cap'n in him and peed straight out of the diaper and down his leg.  thanks for that, baby.

10:40  need. more. coffee. now.
10:41  clean eggs off table, chair, and floor.  call E back to start schoolwork. why did she go back up there??
10:42  consider selling second-born to gypsies while staring out window drinking coffee.

10:45  pee, gather laundry from bathroom, try to switch laundry but have to restart dryer instead
10:55  call E down to start school. again.
10:57  finally!  grammar with E.
11:00  nurse Z  (why is this kid so thirsty today? teething?)
11:20  get kids focused on schoolwork again
11:25  pick up Z's toys, find more pee under racetrack.

11:27  prepare for drawing lesson with K, while listening to E read
11:50  clear table (didn't I already do this?  where did all this stuff come from?)
12:00  music with K
12:40  make lunches for kids, put leftovers in a pan for me, then walk outside to talk to my sweet friend Prybabies' Mama.  watch hubby try to free bird from downspout.
1:05  eat burnt lunch while searching for that kids' photography ecourse thingy I saw somewhere online...I think it was associated with a blog giveaway...shouldn't be too hard to find, right?  right??
1:25  EUREKA!  but it's not what I thought it was.  bummer.
1:26  go outside to watch bird rescue proceedings - hubby had to remove the downspout and turn it sideways, but TWO(!) birds eventually flew out of there!   I wonder how long they were stuck in there?

1:45  nurse Z
1:55  clean up from lunch, feed Z his lunch and help E with Reading Eggs

offering me a bite of his lunch

2:17  get hubby to watch Z eat while I hide in the bathroom (don't pretend you've never done it.)
2:23  kick E off computer so I can find out if Northern Lights that were visible last night will be visible again tonight.  I found lots of pretty pictures to distract me... 
3:10  go check K's room because he had to clean up all legos before he was allowed to open the new set  that came in the mail today.  he bought that sucker with his own money.
nurse Z and watch new episode of 30 Rock on Netflix with hubby.

3:50 weigh Z and look up weight chart online (not usually so obsessive, but once in a while I get a little crazy.  as I was writing down every little thing I did, this day was obviously a crazy day.)
4:00  put spaghetti squash in oven knowing full well E is going to refuse to eat it.
4:15  facebook...
4:45  check on K - wow he has built a lot on that lego set!  he does NOT want my help.
5:00  switch laundry, sort some stuff to put on Craigslist
5:20  finish making dinner, eat, (E had a sandwich. oh well. I tried.)  head out to Predators game
10:00  home, ask kids to brush their teeth and get in bed.
10:10  yell at strongly encourage children to get in bed because I am much too tired to do anything but watch tv and eat chocolate.  Or fall in bed myself.


Okay, so I lied.  I did put it all down here.  I didn't want you to miss out on one single second of my super exciting day.  (I have been know to use sarcasm from time to time.)  I started to say that this wasn't a typical day, because hubby was off work and was just gone to exercise in the morning but with us all afternoon, plus there was the hockey game.  But then I realized that we don't actually have a typical day.

In the end, K got all of his schoolwork done, E got most of hers done,  2 loads of laundry got washed (but not folded or put away), I did my 15 minutes of decluttering and wiped down the bathroom.  Everyone got fed and nobody died, so I think I have to count this day as a success.  My house still looks like the inside of a port-a-john.

Try, try again

Some things just require more than one attempt:
- blogging
- decluttering
- scheduling schoolwork
- limiting tv/screen time (yikes - does this apply to me, too??)

And so, here I am, attempting.  I am blogging (right this minute!), I am signed up for FLYlady's emails for decluttering motivation, I have a loose weekly schedule for which subject on which day, and well, I am watching tv and facebooking and blogging at the same time.  Three out of four ain't bad, right?  My problem is I tend to think that if I mess up a little, it's all over. And I quit.  So tonight I will practice the art of self-forgiveness and indulgence.  I will let the kids watch another episode while I surf the web, and tomorrow will be a new day with new victories and mistakes.  I will do my best to enjoy it!

holidays and snow days, oh my!

No time of year do I hear "I could never homeschool my kids" as often as I do during Christmas break.  My friends whose kids go to school talk to each other about how glad they'll be when school starts back.  Can I let you in on a little secret?  My kids are just as crazy as yours at Christmastime, and when it snows they are just as loud and wild and stir crazy.  I am just as anxious for "school" to start back - for all the holiday activities to be done and for us to resume our regular schedule(ish).  If my kids acted all the time like they act during winter break, I doubt I would feel able to homeschool either! Now, please don't hear me trying to convince you to homeschool if it's not for you, but I don't want anyone thinking that I have some kind of superhuman patience either.  Believe me, I don't.  As a matter of fact, it is snowing right now, and my kids are getting hyped up, and I have already yelled at them (about nothing at all), and I am starting to doubt my own sanity once again.  I guess it's time to scrap my plans and pull out the mittens (and maybe a bottle of wine).

gratuitous baby cuteness.  some days it's the only thing keeping me from going round the bend.

more than just music

A couple of nights ago I was privileged to be in the audience of my niece's first band concert.  I didn't expect too much from a middle school band, but they were amazing!  I completely enjoyed the concert.  K and E got a little bored after their cousin finished her part, but baby Z danced and sang until they played a slower song, and then he went to sleep. 

As I listened, I was transported back a few (ahem) years to my own Jr. High band.  I remember how amazing it was to me that I could play my little part and the other band members could play their little parts, and altogether it became a song.  I remember listening for some of those parts to surface as melody lines were passed around among the instruments, then the instrument's part would melt back into accompaniment and be indiscernible among the other instruments.  We were so much more than a bunch of individuals playing instruments, we were a band.  What we played was so much more than a bunch of different parts, it was music.

As I drove home, reminiscing, I mourned a little on my children's behalf that they won't have the opportunity to take beginning band in 6th grade like I did, and like their cousin is doing.  I wonder if they will ever have that experiential knowledge of teamwork; the feeling of being part of something bigger than yourself; the pride in what your group does that is so much better than you could do on your own.  I honestly haven't experienced that anywhere outside of band or chorus.  It may be that their experience wouldn't be like mine anyway, or that they wouldn't choose to participate in band.  Still, I can't help feeling a little sad.