Sometimes being a parent makes you say things, particularly to ask questions that you never expected to utter. A sampling of things I have actually said. Some of them more than once. Some of them frequently.
"Where are you going with that hot dog?"
"Stop licking your brother."
"Who peed in the trash can?" (or...the corner... or the bucket...)
"No you can't play on the roof."
"Yes I know Daddy just dumped water on you from the roof."
"Who flushed the capri sun down the toilet?" (or the lego.... or the Star Wars action figure...)
"Well, did you hit him first?"
"Who tried to put my drivers license in the computer disc drive?"
"No more hiding in the drier!"
"Stop taking all the pens apart!"
"The popcorn IS dinner."
"Don't sit on your brother's head."
"Why are the eggs under the stairs?"
"Are you stealing your brother's underwear?"
"No you cannot wear your pajamas to _____ (church, library, park....)" and also the opposite "Fine, wear your pajamas I don't really care."
"Did someone put a slice of cheese in the toaster?"
"Stop peeling the paint off the bannister!"
Yep. This is my real life folks.
Wednesday, February 25, 2015
"Well, you can't never let anything happen to him. Then nothing would ever happen to him. Not much fun for little Harpo" (October 2014)
Ahhhh... the wisdom of an animated fish with short term memory loss.
I have been accused of being an over protective parent. When I discovered that my 2 year olds were sad in church nursery, I took them out. When my 3 year old didn't want to go to his primary (sunday school) class alone, Kris or I went with him. For months. "You really need to cut the apron strings." A well meaning (I guess), but seriously misguided (in my humble opinion) primary leader told me. We don't let our kids ride bikes until they are 8. They very seldom were ever babysat. They almost never are allowed to spend a night at someone else's house. I am seriously nervous when any of them climb trees. I don't like them to go anywhere alone. Ever. I regularly spy on my teenagers' Facebook activity... as in I actually have their passwords and can get in as them and see everything they see. And they can't even be on Facebook before they turn sixteen. When they attend youth activities we drive the leaders crazy asking for details. Heck, we don't even send them to school before they are about 16. When they are away from home, we text constantly, typically several times a day. Even those that live in a different state.
Now I have 3 children who have been away on missions for over a year now. This represents a new parenting milestone for us. We have done college before, but these are our first missionaries. Daily texts and phonecalls do not happen with missionaries. A once a week email that is frequently shorter than we would like and twice a year skypes or phonecalls, that are always much, much too short are all we have, but oh how we value those emails and those calls! Last week, I received an email from the Texas Houston East mission home asking for a few specifics so that they could arrange a flight home for Bayley on January 7th. I definitely DID NOT burst into tears attempting to read the email outloud to Fionnula. Because that would be silly. And Fionnula had no cause to say something like "I know you are happy... but you sort of seem sad..." Because, well, there were no tears of course!
I am frequently asked by others as they get ready to send off their own missionaries, or even by those who are just curious "Is it awful when they leave?" Once someone even said that she "could not believe I would allow them to go," yeah, that really happened. So, setting aside the obvious facts that my children were 18 and 20 and largely financing their own missions (sort of... but we aren't talking here about how our family mission fund works... it's clever though, and totally not of my design), and so really they were quite capable of going whether or not I or Kris 'allowed,' it... and yet, I guess we did allow them to go, we even encouraged them to go, we are proud of their decisions to go. But, yes, it was terrible when they left. We cried, they cried, their siblings cried...at the airport, on the way home from the airport, for days and weeks after at unexpected moments. A few days after they were all gone, I found a pair of running socks Rhys had left behind. It grieved me to no end that he forgot those silly, very replaceable, socks! A year out, we discovered a lifeguard whistle under the seat of my car, could have belonged to any of them, and yes it made me wistful and nostalgic and, at that moment, it hurt I missed them so bad! Some mornings Fionn wakes up crying because she dreamt they were home and woke to find them not. So yes, letting them go is hard.
You know what else is hard? When we receive emails from them that they are sick, that they are discouraged, that they have a difficult companion, that they aren't eating, their feet hurt, people are mean, dogs are biting, bees are stinging, boys are throwing rotting fruit at them. In the year (and a bit more) since the missions began, there have been fires and earthquakes in Kegan's mission, Rhys was seriously ill for months, was nearly mugged once, and lost his credit card and camera and Bayley broke her wrist and had to have surgery in the mission without us there. It is always hard to be a parent that cannot step in and fix things for your kids.
But what sort of mother would I be if I had told them that I couldn't bear to have them leave me, that they needed to stay here... for me? Because I would feel more comfortable with them safely tucked away in my basement or because I couldn't stand the loneliness. Would I sacrifice what they wanted and needed for me? Of course not. Would I rather Rhys be safe in my basement and far from the stray dogs of Argentina who chase him and bite his ankles but missing out on the adventures of living in Argentina for two years? Would I prefer that Bayley had been sent home for that surgery, so that I could be the one who sat by her side? Would I have her sacrifice the rest of her mission because I was too selfish to share her with the wonderful people of Texas who have taken such good care of her? Would I deny Kegan the chance to serve the people of Chile and help them re build their city after that devastating fire? Most of all, would I deny my children the amazing learning experience and the chance for exponential spirtitual growth that their missions have been and would I deny the people of Chile or Argentina or Texas the service and love of my children? No, I wouldn't.
I love my kids. I miss them terribly. I miss them like a piece of me is gone. But being a parent means sacrificing what would be most comfortable to me for what will be best for them.
I have been accused of being an over protective parent. When I discovered that my 2 year olds were sad in church nursery, I took them out. When my 3 year old didn't want to go to his primary (sunday school) class alone, Kris or I went with him. For months. "You really need to cut the apron strings." A well meaning (I guess), but seriously misguided (in my humble opinion) primary leader told me. We don't let our kids ride bikes until they are 8. They very seldom were ever babysat. They almost never are allowed to spend a night at someone else's house. I am seriously nervous when any of them climb trees. I don't like them to go anywhere alone. Ever. I regularly spy on my teenagers' Facebook activity... as in I actually have their passwords and can get in as them and see everything they see. And they can't even be on Facebook before they turn sixteen. When they attend youth activities we drive the leaders crazy asking for details. Heck, we don't even send them to school before they are about 16. When they are away from home, we text constantly, typically several times a day. Even those that live in a different state.
Now I have 3 children who have been away on missions for over a year now. This represents a new parenting milestone for us. We have done college before, but these are our first missionaries. Daily texts and phonecalls do not happen with missionaries. A once a week email that is frequently shorter than we would like and twice a year skypes or phonecalls, that are always much, much too short are all we have, but oh how we value those emails and those calls! Last week, I received an email from the Texas Houston East mission home asking for a few specifics so that they could arrange a flight home for Bayley on January 7th. I definitely DID NOT burst into tears attempting to read the email outloud to Fionnula. Because that would be silly. And Fionnula had no cause to say something like "I know you are happy... but you sort of seem sad..." Because, well, there were no tears of course!
I am frequently asked by others as they get ready to send off their own missionaries, or even by those who are just curious "Is it awful when they leave?" Once someone even said that she "could not believe I would allow them to go," yeah, that really happened. So, setting aside the obvious facts that my children were 18 and 20 and largely financing their own missions (sort of... but we aren't talking here about how our family mission fund works... it's clever though, and totally not of my design), and so really they were quite capable of going whether or not I or Kris 'allowed,' it... and yet, I guess we did allow them to go, we even encouraged them to go, we are proud of their decisions to go. But, yes, it was terrible when they left. We cried, they cried, their siblings cried...at the airport, on the way home from the airport, for days and weeks after at unexpected moments. A few days after they were all gone, I found a pair of running socks Rhys had left behind. It grieved me to no end that he forgot those silly, very replaceable, socks! A year out, we discovered a lifeguard whistle under the seat of my car, could have belonged to any of them, and yes it made me wistful and nostalgic and, at that moment, it hurt I missed them so bad! Some mornings Fionn wakes up crying because she dreamt they were home and woke to find them not. So yes, letting them go is hard.
You know what else is hard? When we receive emails from them that they are sick, that they are discouraged, that they have a difficult companion, that they aren't eating, their feet hurt, people are mean, dogs are biting, bees are stinging, boys are throwing rotting fruit at them. In the year (and a bit more) since the missions began, there have been fires and earthquakes in Kegan's mission, Rhys was seriously ill for months, was nearly mugged once, and lost his credit card and camera and Bayley broke her wrist and had to have surgery in the mission without us there. It is always hard to be a parent that cannot step in and fix things for your kids.
But what sort of mother would I be if I had told them that I couldn't bear to have them leave me, that they needed to stay here... for me? Because I would feel more comfortable with them safely tucked away in my basement or because I couldn't stand the loneliness. Would I sacrifice what they wanted and needed for me? Of course not. Would I rather Rhys be safe in my basement and far from the stray dogs of Argentina who chase him and bite his ankles but missing out on the adventures of living in Argentina for two years? Would I prefer that Bayley had been sent home for that surgery, so that I could be the one who sat by her side? Would I have her sacrifice the rest of her mission because I was too selfish to share her with the wonderful people of Texas who have taken such good care of her? Would I deny Kegan the chance to serve the people of Chile and help them re build their city after that devastating fire? Most of all, would I deny my children the amazing learning experience and the chance for exponential spirtitual growth that their missions have been and would I deny the people of Chile or Argentina or Texas the service and love of my children? No, I wouldn't.
I love my kids. I miss them terribly. I miss them like a piece of me is gone. But being a parent means sacrificing what would be most comfortable to me for what will be best for them.
Thursday, October 2, 2014
On Teaching Reading
Recent discussion on a Facebook group has had me thinking about our learning to read years. We have ten voracious readers now, many of whom are frequently in trouble because of reading. Because they read when they should be doing math or the dishes or when they need to be gettng out the door for an appointment or when it is well past time for them to be asleep already! When we go anywhere, they bring books, some of them bring two in case they finish one and are left for even a few minutes in the car with no book to read. But there were times when I wondered if some of them would ever learn to read. It is definitely sometimes a long and arduous process getting from learning the ABCs to actually reading a real book. And honestly, there were days when I was less than patient listening to one child or another painstakenly sound out the same word that he just read on the page before! And there were days when we just didn't even try too, because sometimes getting a hyper 7 year old boy to sit and read a book would require actually tying him down... and that didn't seem reasonable, and besides, let's face it, he would still escape.
An actual excerpt from a reading session with a young Ronan:
Ronan: “I can hold up these books!
And the fish on a rake!
I can hold the toy ship
And a little toy man!”
Ronan: “It says a bad word in this book.”
Mommy: “That word is ‘as,’ Ronan.”
Ronan: “Oh, I thought it was…”
Mommy: “I know, but the ‘s’ sounds like a ‘z’ in this word.”
Ronan: “Oh.”
Mommy: “Read the next word Ronan.”
Ronan: whistles a few times, and then: “That is what the bird outside just said. Did you hear him?”
Mommy: “Yes, Ronan, I heard the bird. Let’s finish this word.”
Ronan: “Okay.
Ronan: “R..R..R Rake?”
Mommy: “No, not rake.”
Ronan “But there is a rake in the picture.”
Mommy: “I know there is a rake in the picture, but this word isn’t rake.
And it went on like that. It went on like that for years. Ronan could read his first words at three years old. He could confidently read a book, on his own, when he was nine! That was a long six years of listening to him sound out words and teaching him to focus on the task at hand and try to shut out all the distractions that invade his brain every second of the day.
His siblings were different. Each and every one of them. And for some, reading came pretty quick and easy. His oldest sisters started at 4 and 5 and were reading on their own inside of a year. Amik had speech issues to deal with in addition to reading issues and, like Ronan, Kris and I listened to him read outloud for years. Liam just didn't care at first, and then suddenly he did and went from being what most would consider a 'late' reader who really started reading regularly to his Daddy at seven, to suddenly reading Redwall and Harry Potter by the time he was eight.
Each of them was a little different. And we did lots of things including 'labeling' every object in the house, using online games, teaching phonetic sounds and memorizing dolch word lists, but looking back, I think there was only one thing that was really important: that we read good books together, we read to them and when they were ready they read to us. I honestly think the rest was mostly inconsequential in the end. They learned to read by reading books. Period. And I learned to be patient. Or at least I got to practice it.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Musings from a Reluctant Scout Mom
We finally held Amik's Eagle Court of Honor. He officially became our third Eagle Scout back in May when he emerged triumphant from his Eagle Board of Review (this incredibly intimidating thing that scouting does to poor boys who have just finished years of work and piles of paperwork, akin to defending a doctoral dissertation actually... not that I personally have ever done either. Defend a dissertation or submit to an Eagle board of review that is. But I know well and love people who have done these things). My family is proof that boys can achieve this rank in scouting without really being the typical gung-ho scouter stereo type. So, some words of comfort to those who are more like me, who believe it really is possible for a boy to grow into a good man and not necessarily know how to shoot a rifle, or tie a myriad of precisely executed knots, or even love camping, or be completely confident about which plants on the mountainside are edible and which aren't.
When the boys conduct a flag ceremony, relax if it lacks in military precision. They try, but when you are 11 and trying to control a flag at the end of a pole more than twice your height in a room with a ceiling that is much too low for said pole and which in addition is made of a material that can be easily pierced by said pole, well, things get complicated. And even though the leader just ran through the whole ceremony with you in the hallway.... again, when you actually march into a room with all eyes on you and your way too tall flag, it is suddenly not really easy to remember what every order means or who is supposed to walk right and who left and whether or not you salute or say the pledge or what. They are only 11 (or 12 or even 16) give them a break, this isn't the Marines.
It's not all about the perfection of the uniform! If you aren't in scouting, then you probably don't realize that those lovely polyester tan shirts cost about $40 each. And that is with no precisely embroidered patches whatsoever. Each of those are another few dollars. Also.... I cannot speak for all teenage boys of course, but I do know several well and most of them don't actually love those scouting shirts. They wear them of course, when they must, and hopefully when others are wearing them too so they don't call too much attention to themselves, but let's just say that they aren't what most of them would choose if they were attending say, a party at a friend's house. We have been lucky enough to always acquire hand down shirts. Which means that none of my boys have ever had the most current in scout fashion. Also, none of my Eagles wore a uniform to their Courts of Honor or even the Eagle boards. They grew out of all my hand downs by the time they were 16 or so, and when I was offered the "a white shirt and tie counts as a scout uniform" option, I was all over that.
About those patches.... there are a puzzling amount of fabulous accessories involved in scouting.... scarves and sashes and pins and badges. And, if your kid is making any progress whatsoever, then some of those patches are changing regularly! Here is my little piece of advice on the rank patches: don't sew them on. Shhhhh.... don't tell anyone I said that, but on my boys' shirts, I don't sew on the ranks. Because at the next court of honor... he'll probably get a new one! So, I use my little safety pins that are bent a tad for basting quilts.... and I PIN them on! If you pin from inside the pocket and put the patch up just a tiny bit so the very top is under the pocket flap, no one will ever know. However, the merit badge patches? Get the sash and sew those on as they go. Really, it is no fun sewing 20 or more patches on to a sash the night before a board of review because your kid has always just kept his patches in a notebook and never once worn the sash for any occasion whatsoever in 6 or 7 years of scouting. And no, I don't make my boys sew their own patches on. And yes, they can all sew on a button or do minor clothing repairs as needed.
Learn to appreciate that scouting has a sense of humor. For instance, many merit badges include one requirement that appears to be there purely for the entertainment value it provides the Merit Badge counselor. A case in point: the swimming badge requirement that one jump into the pool fully clothed and then attempt to fashion out of one's clothing some sort of flotation device--and then use said flotation device (!) does this ever work for anyone? Only if you go prepared and wearing a pair of nylon athletic pants. Also, a record keeping system that even in 2014 relies heavily upon tiny 3 inch high 'blue cards' that teenaged boys are supposed to be keeping track of for approximately 6 years!
Scouting and I had a rocky beginning... on account of my aforementioned firm belief that not all good men hunt and camp and tie knots. But I have learned some things in our years in scouting that I am not sure everyone always figures out... or maybe they just don't agree. Certainly some of the individuals I have dealt with over the years have not come to the same conclusions as I. But here it is: I don't believe that the real benefits, or even the real intention, of scouting actually has anything to do with camping or tying knots or shooting guns. Gasp! I know, it is a shock. (By the way, all three of my Eagles made it that far without ever touching a gun more lethal than a nerf dart gun and one of them made it that far without ever learning to love camping). What I think scouting is really about is setting goals and achieving them. It is about following rules...even the ones that make no sense whatsoever to you (like that swimming merit badge requirement) And it is about learning to work with people who you may not know, or even harder, who you may not like. It is about serving. It is very much about going out and doing and then returning to report....sometimes in the form of lengthy, tedious paperwork. It is about being responsible. And it is about growing up.
I still don't think scouting is a perfect program. But it is a good program. And when the leaders really honestly care about the boys more than they do scouting itself, it can be great.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Art
I am not an art teacher. Nor am I an Algebra teacher or a Biology teacher, a music teacher or a PE teacher. But all of those things do happen in our homeschool. Probably the only subjects I come close to being 'highly qualified' in are English, which I majored in, and History, which I minored in. But I do not hold a teacher's license of any kind whatsoever. Probably if I taught at your kid's public school you would be appalled at my lack of qualifications. For instance, I never once had a college course in putting together bulletin boards.
But this post was about art. I am not an art teacher, like I said before, however I love to do art with my kids. And I like to show off the fabulous things they produce. So....here are a few of our art projects from the last several months. Since I am a self-proclaimed non-expert, I find it extremely helpful to seek out the advice of experts, something very easy to do with a laptop and an internet connection....so, most of these projects can be found at deepspacesparkle.com... and maybe a couple others.
By Liam 11 years old
By Fionnula 8 years old
By Ronan 13 years old
Liam
Ronan
Fionnula
Ronan
Liam
Ronan
Fionnula
Liam
Fionnula
But this post was about art. I am not an art teacher, like I said before, however I love to do art with my kids. And I like to show off the fabulous things they produce. So....here are a few of our art projects from the last several months. Since I am a self-proclaimed non-expert, I find it extremely helpful to seek out the advice of experts, something very easy to do with a laptop and an internet connection....so, most of these projects can be found at deepspacesparkle.com... and maybe a couple others.
Fionnula
Friday, July 11, 2014
Fence Building
Last week was our summer "vacation." By which I mean that Kris didn't have to go to work, my older kids didn't have to go to work and no one did math. Well, maybe Noah still did some math. What to do with a whole week off? Well we did consider a few different short trips... but in the end we knew, that what we really absolutely had to do... was repair the fence between our yard and our neighbors. The thing was propped up every few feet along most of it's length...and still was threatening to completely collapse at even the suggestion of a brief gust of wind. So fence repair became the first priority for our week. And Monday morning began with the demolition. Kris's instructions to the kids were that all the slats and cross supports come down, every nail and or screw be removed, and the wood stacked across the yard at our woodpile for cutting later. Then the old posts had to be removed from the ground and new holes dug for the new posts. And you know what? They did it. I helped some. Kris helped some. But most of the tearing apart of the old fence was accomplished by the kids working together. Bigger boys did most of the actual demolition, little kids led by Aislin managed to remove most of the nails. Only one kid got hit in the head with a hammer... he did it himself. And only one kid stepped on a nail... no lock jaw yet and it has been a week, so I am guessing we are in the clear. By Monday night, the old fence was gone and the new posts were cemented in and my children were seriously hungry and exhausted.
The next day we built an all new fence. After the first few feet they developed a pretty smooth rhythm. One person holds a new slat in place, one drills in the first screw, one checks it is level and while the other screws go in, someone is handing over a new slat. Still took all day. The neighbors bought us all some fabulous pizza though that we ate in their backyard as we finished the last few feet. The fence looks fantastic. And most of the raspberry bushes and flower beds survived. Ronan was sure to tell his big brothers in his email to them that he had built more fence than they had a couple years ago, when Kegan and Rhys helped extend a fence and do some repairs on another side of the yard.
The rest of our week had a little more of a "vacation" flair to it... after a few hours Wednesday morning of Dad cutting up all those wood slats and children stacking them all to burn next winter. We saw a movie everyone had been waiting for... and their Daddy even paid for everyone's tickets. We went to the museum in Denver and saw a traveling exhibit on the Mayans, had a picnic and did a quick zoo visit. We went out to eat at a favorite restaurant. We drove to the top of Pike's Peak... there is still popcorn in the back of my car---evidence of what happens to a sealed bag full of air (and popcorn) when you transport it to higher altitudes (hint: it explodes...and scares the bejeebers out of everyone in the car). We grilled some delicious teriyaki chicken with pineapples and peppers and made ice cream and a fruit tart that I ate way more than my share of (fruit is good for you! Even when cream and butter are involved). We even watched some futbol.
It was a great week.. and I don't mean it was a great HALF a week after we finally got all that work out of the way. Because the work was fun too. It was it's own kind of fun. And I hope the kids remember it that way too. I hope they remember how it felt to work hard together. And I hope they remember that even while they were working and sweating, they were also being silly and singing Disney songs and telling bad jokes. I hope they remember how good their dinner tasted after working so hard for so long. I hope that every time they look at that fence, they are proud of themselves.
The next day we built an all new fence. After the first few feet they developed a pretty smooth rhythm. One person holds a new slat in place, one drills in the first screw, one checks it is level and while the other screws go in, someone is handing over a new slat. Still took all day. The neighbors bought us all some fabulous pizza though that we ate in their backyard as we finished the last few feet. The fence looks fantastic. And most of the raspberry bushes and flower beds survived. Ronan was sure to tell his big brothers in his email to them that he had built more fence than they had a couple years ago, when Kegan and Rhys helped extend a fence and do some repairs on another side of the yard.
The rest of our week had a little more of a "vacation" flair to it... after a few hours Wednesday morning of Dad cutting up all those wood slats and children stacking them all to burn next winter. We saw a movie everyone had been waiting for... and their Daddy even paid for everyone's tickets. We went to the museum in Denver and saw a traveling exhibit on the Mayans, had a picnic and did a quick zoo visit. We went out to eat at a favorite restaurant. We drove to the top of Pike's Peak... there is still popcorn in the back of my car---evidence of what happens to a sealed bag full of air (and popcorn) when you transport it to higher altitudes (hint: it explodes...and scares the bejeebers out of everyone in the car). We grilled some delicious teriyaki chicken with pineapples and peppers and made ice cream and a fruit tart that I ate way more than my share of (fruit is good for you! Even when cream and butter are involved). We even watched some futbol.
It was a great week.. and I don't mean it was a great HALF a week after we finally got all that work out of the way. Because the work was fun too. It was it's own kind of fun. And I hope the kids remember it that way too. I hope they remember how it felt to work hard together. And I hope they remember that even while they were working and sweating, they were also being silly and singing Disney songs and telling bad jokes. I hope they remember how good their dinner tasted after working so hard for so long. I hope that every time they look at that fence, they are proud of themselves.
Monday, June 2, 2014
The 'Other' Reasons We Love Homeschool
Not all of my reasons for homeschooling are actually all that noble. Some of them are just downright lazy and selfish, the sorts of things you don't necessarily want to admit to actually thinking of as advantages. But, I am going to admit to them anyway:
I never have to attend a single elementary school Christmas play or even a middle school band concert. Never.
I don't have to remember what day of 'Spirit Week' it is and dress my kid accordingly. (Most days at our school are pajama day anyhow... and when it is Noah's laundry day...it is swim shorts day for him.)
I don't need to keep track of the minutes my emergent reader is spending reading each evening or of piece of paper I am supposed to sign each night to verify said minutes.
I never have to chaperone a zoo field trip.
When the school year is beginning, I walk merrily right on past those long lists of school supplies the stores all have on display.
If my eight year old sleeps till 9:30, it isn't a tragedy that requires me notifying anyone about why she is late for anything. Or if I want to go to the zoo today... no one needs to know.
No 100 day of school projects.
No Valentines for the whole class.
I never have to pack a lunch (or several lunches) at 7 am in the morning.... we think about what's for lunch when it is lunch time.
Those long lines of mini vans waiting outside the schools every morning and afternoon have nothing whatsoever to do with me. I think Mr Mom instilled a fear of this very situation years ago...perhaps it influenced our decision to just not be a part of the system --"South to drop off, moron!"
No long talks with teachers, principals and probably counselors about why one or the other of my sometimes rather impulsive children did whatever weird thing they did today without a single thought of its consequences.... because, yeah, if my kids went to school, those sorts of talks would be pretty common place.
So I keep them home. I have the noble reasons too of course. But I am not unaware of the fact that some of what I consider the advantages of homeschooling are not all that glorious.
I never have to attend a single elementary school Christmas play or even a middle school band concert. Never.
I don't have to remember what day of 'Spirit Week' it is and dress my kid accordingly. (Most days at our school are pajama day anyhow... and when it is Noah's laundry day...it is swim shorts day for him.)
I don't need to keep track of the minutes my emergent reader is spending reading each evening or of piece of paper I am supposed to sign each night to verify said minutes.
I never have to chaperone a zoo field trip.
When the school year is beginning, I walk merrily right on past those long lists of school supplies the stores all have on display.
If my eight year old sleeps till 9:30, it isn't a tragedy that requires me notifying anyone about why she is late for anything. Or if I want to go to the zoo today... no one needs to know.
No 100 day of school projects.
No Valentines for the whole class.
I never have to pack a lunch (or several lunches) at 7 am in the morning.... we think about what's for lunch when it is lunch time.
Those long lines of mini vans waiting outside the schools every morning and afternoon have nothing whatsoever to do with me. I think Mr Mom instilled a fear of this very situation years ago...perhaps it influenced our decision to just not be a part of the system --"South to drop off, moron!"
No long talks with teachers, principals and probably counselors about why one or the other of my sometimes rather impulsive children did whatever weird thing they did today without a single thought of its consequences.... because, yeah, if my kids went to school, those sorts of talks would be pretty common place.
So I keep them home. I have the noble reasons too of course. But I am not unaware of the fact that some of what I consider the advantages of homeschooling are not all that glorious.
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