We took the kids out to our land today (yes, we own land! I feel so grown up!) We needed to mark the property line and figure roughly where the corners of our house will be so our sewer guy can finish up the perc test. ("The sewer guy" is actually named Mike, but to save my life, I can't ever remember his last name. We've been calling him "Sewer Mike" for the last couple months. Old habits die hard, so I'm sorry to say he'll probably forever be Sewer Mike in my mind. Sorry, Mike.)
Anyway, I realized my mistake as soon as we drove up: Temperatures were hovering barely above freezing, we had two restless kids with us, we had packed absolutely nothing for them to do or play with, and the land was one huge mud pit because of all the melted ice and snow. Perrin immediately ran off to investigate a big pile of sand. I feebly called out after him, "Stay out of the mud!" Brielle ran along behind him, so Trey and I headed up our hill to start laying down some twine to mark the property line.
Not five minutes later, Perrin started yelling for me frantically. He was stuck ankle-deep in some mud and had lost one of his shoes in it. He was trying to balance on one foot to keep his sock clean, but the boy has my genes, which means zero balance or coordination. His socked foot landed in the mud (along with a good 6 inches of his pants). He tried to regain his balance and ended up losing his other shoe. He couldn't balance long enough to get his shoes back on, so he ended up sticking his hands and arms in the mud too. By that point, I'd made it to him and was trying to hold him steady while he got his shoes back on. Mud was smeared all over my hands, arms, legs, and house blueprints, and we still didn't get his shoes on (they'd sunk quite a bit at this point). I finally marched him off to the car in his socked feet, then had him take off his muddy socks and wait for us in the car. I told him if he wanted to get back out, he would need to climb out before putting back on his socks and shoes.
Later, when we finished marking our house corners and came back to the car, muddy footprints covered most of the seats and floors. And we discovered once we turned the car on that he had pressed practically every button he could find (although he told us that he "didn't press a few of them.")
I forgot to mention that Brielle was hysterical at this point because she was cold, cranky, and frustrated at her disobedient parents, who did not cater to her demands of being carried all over our hillside.
Thinking to the year ahead and all the house projects we'll be doing, I'm getting a little nervous. This is gonna be hard work. Even a simple project like today becomes a time-consuming mess with kids factored in. We'll just have to do the best we can... and expect a few muddy footprints along the way.
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Monday, February 2, 2015
I think I've made up my mind.
Well, it looks like we're taking the homeschooling plunge. While many of my friends are filling out Kindergarten applications, I've been hemming and hawing and trying to decide what's best for us. The answer that has come to me after many hours of praying and pondering? A resounding "I don't know."
This hasn't been an easy decision for me because public school certainly has its merits. It's free (or rather, it's something we're already paying for anyway with our taxes). It provides opportunities for socialization that I can't quite replicate with homeschooling. It ensures that he'll be learning at an appropriate pace for his age and grade level, and he'll have the pressure of his peers and teachers to keep him on track. Having both kids in school would mean I could return to full-time work eventually. And possibly the best of all--public schooling requires very little effort on my part.
I know a lot of people, particularly Christian families, who choose to homeschool to protect their kids from negative influences. I understand why they do that, and I even agree with it to some degree, but I have to admit that this is not a major influence in my decision to homeschool. In fact, I even wonder if this could be a negative. I want my children to love and have compassion for non-believers and not feel suspicious of them or develop an "us-vs-them" mentality. I need to teach them to positively interact with people who don't believe the same things that they believe and to engage with them in honest discussions without compromising their faith and values. So how am I going to do this when they're stuck at home with me every day? Maybe it means they eventually will go to public school, or maybe it means we get creative by doing some outreach programs as part of our homeschooling. I have lots of questions like this that I haven't quite resolved yet.
So with all my misgivings and concerns, what tipped the scales in favor of homeschooling? I think the number one reason is the gift of time. Everyone says children grow up so fast. If I homeschool, I'll get to spend 2-3 times more quality time with my children than those who don't. (I know, I know... lots of people reading this would reply, "And that's a good thing??" But I really do enjoy spending time with my children. And I know you do too, cynical one.)
Another reason is that I've had 5 years now to get to know Perrin's personality and how he learns best, and I've concluded that traditional schooling would not be a good fit for him. He loves learning right now, and I don't want to take that away from him by putting him in a situation that simply doesn't fit his style and strengths. Homeschooling means we can read a book together at the park, or examine bugs under our microscope, or learn about trains from youtube videos, or take field trips to the museum. And he can chew gum or wiggle to his heart's content or ask me a zillion questions while we're doing school work, and I won't mind. And who better to choose his curriculum and teach it to him than the person who knows him best and cares more about his education than anyone?
So I think I've made up my mind. And if you've read this entire blog post of my ramblings, wow! I don't know if you're really interested in my schooling choice for my kids or just incredibly bored (because there are some seriously entertaining things on the Internet you could be looking at right now instead), but whatever the case, thank you for caring... and please pray for my sanity and patience for the next 18 years. Our incredible, entertaining, frustrating, overwhelming journey of homeschooling is about to begin.
This hasn't been an easy decision for me because public school certainly has its merits. It's free (or rather, it's something we're already paying for anyway with our taxes). It provides opportunities for socialization that I can't quite replicate with homeschooling. It ensures that he'll be learning at an appropriate pace for his age and grade level, and he'll have the pressure of his peers and teachers to keep him on track. Having both kids in school would mean I could return to full-time work eventually. And possibly the best of all--public schooling requires very little effort on my part.
I know a lot of people, particularly Christian families, who choose to homeschool to protect their kids from negative influences. I understand why they do that, and I even agree with it to some degree, but I have to admit that this is not a major influence in my decision to homeschool. In fact, I even wonder if this could be a negative. I want my children to love and have compassion for non-believers and not feel suspicious of them or develop an "us-vs-them" mentality. I need to teach them to positively interact with people who don't believe the same things that they believe and to engage with them in honest discussions without compromising their faith and values. So how am I going to do this when they're stuck at home with me every day? Maybe it means they eventually will go to public school, or maybe it means we get creative by doing some outreach programs as part of our homeschooling. I have lots of questions like this that I haven't quite resolved yet.
So with all my misgivings and concerns, what tipped the scales in favor of homeschooling? I think the number one reason is the gift of time. Everyone says children grow up so fast. If I homeschool, I'll get to spend 2-3 times more quality time with my children than those who don't. (I know, I know... lots of people reading this would reply, "And that's a good thing??" But I really do enjoy spending time with my children. And I know you do too, cynical one.)
Another reason is that I've had 5 years now to get to know Perrin's personality and how he learns best, and I've concluded that traditional schooling would not be a good fit for him. He loves learning right now, and I don't want to take that away from him by putting him in a situation that simply doesn't fit his style and strengths. Homeschooling means we can read a book together at the park, or examine bugs under our microscope, or learn about trains from youtube videos, or take field trips to the museum. And he can chew gum or wiggle to his heart's content or ask me a zillion questions while we're doing school work, and I won't mind. And who better to choose his curriculum and teach it to him than the person who knows him best and cares more about his education than anyone?
So I think I've made up my mind. And if you've read this entire blog post of my ramblings, wow! I don't know if you're really interested in my schooling choice for my kids or just incredibly bored (because there are some seriously entertaining things on the Internet you could be looking at right now instead), but whatever the case, thank you for caring... and please pray for my sanity and patience for the next 18 years. Our incredible, entertaining, frustrating, overwhelming journey of homeschooling is about to begin.
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