Back to School...Homeschool, that is!

     This is what I have learned from dunking my kids into public school last year.

   There are some teachers and administrators who have a general disdain for homeschoolers, and some who really like them...with almost no middle ground there.  I hope my children represented a good homeschool education by using their manners, being respectful to authority figures and showing kindness to their fellow students. Oh, and doing good schoolwork and getting good grades, blah blah blah.

   Since my kiddos dropped into "the system" after being primarily homeschooled for the previous six years, I had my concerns about their academic success.  After all,  we did not grade every paper, take very many tests, or use a published curriculum for every single subject.  After the first report card, however, my fears were quelled.  9th grader with A's, B's and one C...all you need to know here is that he thoroughly enjoys school...not necessarily school subjects...he just likes to go to school, he did not miss a single day, and I did not have to get him up for the bus one single time. Very responsible kid. He wanted to continue going to public high school (NTI) so we let him.  One comment we got that rubbed me the wrong way was..."thank goodness he's in school".  This was said after he showed off his report card at a family gathering, as if it were the school that whipped him into shape after nine weeks and the previous years of homeschooling, co-ops, daily devotions, library time, activities and etc. had nothing to do with that success. 

5th grader with A's and B's..Carson being a bit shy, had the benefit of having "the nicest teacher at the school". The principal made sure to tell me all about her school being a STEM school (science, technology, engineering, math focused).  I feigned being super-impressed whilst I really don't care.  What good is it for a man to gain the WHOLE WORLD, yet forfeit his soul.  I was just glad he was academically successful, and never had homework.

 My 1st grader had no major issues (N's or check minuses or whatever)  but her teacher was quite zealous about her "trouble spots".  She had a list of sight words that she should "already know" from Kindergarten.  It is no secret around here that Carson and Harmonie both struggled to learn to read.  In fact, after countless phonics workbooks and flash cards and videos being shoved down Carson's throat, I just totally backed off all together...and lo and behold he learned to read fluently as he approached age 8.  With this experience under my belt, I realized Harmonie had the same learning style (some might say difficulty) when she really struggled with letter identification and sounds early on. Sight words...out of the question.  So, I had a meeting with her teacher, shared my thoughts and was sent home with a copy of the list of words, and some activities we could do at home.  I did not tell her I got my teaching degree about the time she was graduating from middle school.  Harmonie had quite a bit of homework, and my thoughts are...if you can't get it done in six hours...call it a day. We have things to do at home, like playing outside until it's dark, eating supper, taking a bath, and reading a story.  The second half of her first grade year, she really gained momentum and her reading and writing improved dramatically AS SHE APPROACHED AGE 8.

So, my insights on this matter have formed a strong opinion that public schools push academics TOO hard on Kindergarteners and first graders...maybe even some second graders.  When I went to college and learned about how kids learn...the professors always stressed that kids had their own developmental time-line and the spectrum could be pretty wide.  I am keenly aware of this since my eldest could read just about any book you handed him at age 4 and the next 2 kids thought the letters F and S made the "eh" sound...eh eh ehf, eh, eh, ehs.  Its all good, don't panic, it will kick in if there are other things being taught at home.  Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control.

Cleaning Fairy, Where are you???

     So, I found that book again.  The one that I keep misplacing and then finding again.  It is called "Organizing Your Home & Family" by Sandra Felton.  I agree that this is mildly ironic and a bit amusing...if you are somebody else.  If you are me...the one who is sitting at the dining room table and sees a sea of clutter between me and the front door...this is not amusing.  It is actually depressing, frustrating, and enough to make a person completely overwhelmed to the point where they just decide there is no point to even dream of a clean house.
     Here is the SHAME ON ME section of this entry:  I have blamed the mess on the kids, the ones whom I have not properly trained to clean up after themselves.  I have blamed it on not having enough time, that is even funny to me as I sit here and type this.  I have blamed my lack of organization and the inability to form a cleaning routine on my own upbringing...I am college educated for crying out loud, I bet I could write a book on methods of cleaning. ( I do have that published article on WWW.MOPS.ORG search Kimberly McCool if it is still there)Surely I'm smart enough to figure out how to do it.  I have also blamed my messy house on my lack of energy...there actually is much truth to that. 
     I have analyzed this situation of mine much too much. (thus wasting more time, and inadvertently dwelling on the negative)  If it is possible to develop Attention Deficit Disorder as an adult...I have...and I owe my husband a great deal of apologies for poking fun of his disorder, always asking him if he has taken his medicine when his constant motion and inability to stay in the room while talking gets on my nerves.  At least his ADD comes in handy for him at work.  He works on commission, so the more work he completes, the more he gets paid.  What an eye opener when he does 100+ hours worth of paint jobs in a 40 hour work week.  He does not waste time. He has several cars in the process of "prep, paint, polish" all day long, all week long.  At the end of the day, when he says he is tired, I believe him!
     On the other hand, at the end of my day...the house is a wreck, dinner may or may not be started, the kids are usually in the midst of playing, napping, or making a mess...and I'm standing around saying "I'm tired".  WTH  So I think, what have I accomplished today, hmmm...at least one load of laundry, its clean and folded, but not put away, I'll do that after I reorganize the winter/summer bins which are lining the upstairs hall... preventing me from vacuuming, the toys about prevent me from vacuuming the downstairs, the stuff all over everywhere prevents me from dusting, sweeping, mopping, etc.  Ah, there's the culprit...STUFF, ha! As much as I would like to blame it on that, it is still me...I bought the stuff!  We just recently had a yard sale to get rid of some stuff, and after that my house still looked like, as I told my MIL..."a yard sale vomited inside my house".
     This was really just an opportunity to vent, and I know that things will change when I don't have children to nurse or potty train or educate, and in the meantime I have a wonderful friend who comes to help me non-judgmentally...thanks Deanna...and a host of wonderful friends who understand...you know who you are...and anyone who is disappointed, or doesn't like a messy house...Thank you in advance for NOT coming over.

PS. Even if you don't care about a messy house, if I don't know you're coming over, don't be surprised if nobody answers the door. ;-)

teenagers...help!

  Trying to find the balance between mother and stalker has proved to be interesting...my plight began at the beginning of this school year.  
  With the birth of baby #5 looming,  I was not the least bit prepared for the home school year and my efforts to find fitting classes or co-ops seemed to come up short, too.  We practically blind-sided the school-agers with public school "just until I could get it all together."  They entered school reluctantly but with the assurance that it was short-lived.
  All have done well academically, and socially ;-)  While the younger ones are poised on the ready for homeschooling again, my oldest wants to continue @New Tech Institute. That is about as close as you can get to a private-like, small school experience in the EVSC, but, alas, it is still a regimen of classes mixed with wasted time... and supervised by people who are paid to educate children according to government standards and influence them according to their own personal baggage and beliefs. (Wonderful teachers exist , no doubt, but they don't know and love my children like I do.) More and more I have discovered that most people think we all have the same moral compass...but we don't.  I'm sure teachers have some stories that would make your hair curl, only to be topped by police officers who have stories that would make you cringe at the notion you even live in the same town with people like that. 
 Yikes! I know, I know...that's life.  Here's the dilemma...there have to be good people in a school(or world) to counter balance the idiots (excuse my crudeness) and preserve some kind of normal .   Can good kids influence others for good, or do they just get diluted by the status quot?  This is what is playing out in real life right now.  My son is experiencing success in school and with peers because he has had positive educational experiences and positive peer interaction up until this point.  He enjoys school, he is motivated to achieve.  He is also being confronted with many issues that have not crossed his path up until this point...drug use, promiscuity, kids who "hate God."  And I am not exactly sure how that is impacting him emotionally, it's as if talking about those issues is embarrassing for him.
  His life is still in the pliable stage, clay that can be molded...but he also makes many decisions for himself that are proper training for adulthood.  I can just hear my critics saying..."you can't shelter them from everything"  no, but I can shelter them from some things, and isn't that part of my job?   Is this his opportunity to be salt and light to the world, or is this opening him up to potential harm?  Hmmmm...I'm not sure.
 

I did the math...

     I just read an interesting blog from my friend, Kate.(www.mammacake.com)  She was reacting to a blurb in her son's elementary school newsletter encouraging parents to read to their children. Yay, we should read to our children. I think so, and Kate thinks so.  The reaction-worthy part of that blurb was where it then began to tell which kinds of books boys would like and which type of books girls might like...stereotypically speaking.  I would generally dismiss an ignorant statement and move on, but not Kate.
   Upon reading her somewhat visceral reaction, I realized two things.
 1. I am generally apathetic toward anything the school system generates.
2.  I was generated by the school system.

While it is frustrating that some cronies are still unwittingly forcing career paths according to gender, some efforts to encourage (or push) girls to "excel" in Math and/or Science and many heretofore male-dominated careers implies that not striving toward post-secondary education and a lofty career is a cop-out.  It most certainly is not, because everyone is not THE SAME.

Case-in-point:   I, too, was pushed along under the college prep umbrella... Unfortunately, the message I received was ...you can be anything you want if you just go to college, get an education, get a job with benefits, make money, save money...etc, etc, etc.  Who would admit to the belief that a person's value is solely dependent on his (or her) income ??? Mother Theresa would not approve, yet I perceive this to be the prevalent message to the up and coming generations of young women(and men).

I would never discourage any of my daughters if their heart's desire was to be a rocket scientist or a dentist, but I certainly wouldn't discourage it if their heart's desire was to be a wife and mother, either. I feel like I knew deep-down I wanted to be a stay-at-home mom, but it was counter-culture in my family of origin...and being a "smart kid" at school...I was guided by "counselors" to take a bunch of classes I really had no interest in or desire to take. Did I stand up for what I wanted?...no...I wasn't really sure how life worked at that point.


I crunched these numbers just for fun...
In 4 years of high school, I took eight semesters, with 7 classes each...lets see that's 56 classes.  Among those 56 classes I took the required English and History, PE and Government/Econ., for the upper tier classes: Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Algebra, Geometry, Analytic Geometry and Trigonometry  , and a smattering of electives, mostly business-oriented.  I never once took a "Study Hall" which I obviously needed but didn't have room for in my schedule. Also, there was a class called "Childhood Development" that I would have probably "enjoyed", but didn't have room in my schedule. And...out of all those classes, I can only think of ONE that I actually benefit from almost everyday...KEYBOARDING 101.  Ironic.

By the way, I have a Bachelor's Degree, too...blah blah blah.

But, now that I am "just a mom",  I have undue self-esteem issues.  I think they stem from not being employed in the field that I was trained for and not being fully trained for what I am doing.  Domestic skills are taken for granted...I didn't really learn many, and my constantly cluttered house and running in circles methods are tiresome.  Here is what I do know...in case you might ask...there isn't anything I would rather do than just be here so that I can try to meet my family's needs. I'm thankful everyday that God (and my husband) values that.

Does this make my butt look big?

I'm starting a list of banned items. 
1. Archer Farms Butter Crunch Peanuts from Target
2. Coca Cola placed in the freezer for exactly 76 minutes
3. Bailey's French Vanilla Coffee Creamer mixed with coffee in a 1:1 ratio...basically turning it into coffee-flavored creamer
4. Any flavor of Edy's ice cream
5.Pringles
6. Chick-Fil-A
7. Chocolate Donut Balls from Donut Bank
8. Any dessert baked in a 9 x 13 pan
9. Thomas's brown sugar and cinnamon bagels with cream cheese
...
I'll have to finish this list after my pillsbury chocolate chip cookies come out of the oven...

Diaper Quest Part 2

So, I thought I should update my status on the whole cloth diaper bandwagon that I was on...to review, I made several cloth diapers in a few different styles hoping to succeed at one method or another.   If I had to grade myself on being green, I would have to give myself a C.  While I did save at least 2-6 disposable diapers a day from the landfill at first...I'm probably down to an average of using cloth only one day out of the week.
Before Libby was born,  I chose to make several "All In One" type diapers, 6 to be exact, and I bought 3(minus the one I lost due to it being placed on a teddy bear and thrown in a toy box), so I was working with 8 of those.  I made 12 prefold diapers, returned the Gerber plastic covers, bought 2 cute waterproof covers on "Etsy" www.etsy.com , and made 2 waterproof covers...they don't count because I made them too small. And I bought some "Snappis"on Ebay.  Lastly...I had a stash of disposables for night time, and the occasional outing.
THIS IS HOW THE COOKIE CRUMBLED, SO TO SPEAK:
First of all, I used disposables given to me at the hospital and brought the rest home, so I thought I should use them(this was the first concession I made).  After that,  I immediately went through half my supply of cloth diapers in rapid succession before I decided to start alternating between cloth and disposable (this was the second concession).  When baby was all of 2 months old...she had completely outgrown the waist size of all of my diapers and covers...so for a week, I considered myself a failure and relied completely on disposables.  After I bought diapers for both of the little ones on the same day, and stewing about the idea of spending nearly twenty dollars on stuff you throw away, I had an epiphany! Make extender tabs for the cloth diapers and you can still use them, dummy! (on a side note, I do not like buying trash bags because you just throw THEM away...but I haven't had any epiphanies on that one, yet.)
THE VERDICT
 I keep forgetting to take the extenders off the All in ones before I throw them down the laundry chute, I keep misplacing the snappis to clasp the prefolds, and every now and then a cover goes MIA...when these things happen I default to the Pampers.  Libby is almost 5 months old now and I have not mastered any single diapering method.  As a matter of fact, I prefer disposables, but my conscience and my budget keep me in the game. :-)