Home Education Week: A prescription for making it work

Welcome to Home Education Week, hosted by Principled Discovery.

Today I am handing out my carefully guarded prescription for being the perfect homeschooling parent, thus being the envy of every woman who dares to ever tread on your perfectly paved ground.

This is bigger than the secret to Bush's Baked Beans, guys and gals. You are witnessing history. Don't let it pass you by.

Here goes.

Ready?



That's it. That's your big, fat chill pill. Choke it down. I don't care if you have a glass of water. It's necessary. Dare I say, it's vital.

Last week, three days after we were PLANNING on starting a really great book about Ben Franklin, I finally drug our butts to the library that had it (20 minutes from us), only to find out that it wasn't available. Guess what? I took my chill pill. So, I camped out and picked out a few really fun books on Ben, and then when we came home we wrote out what pages we all wanted to read over the next few weeks and there you go.

My five year old cannot write her name yet. She has friends younger than her that can write their names. They go to preschool. I know what people are thinking. Thank the Lord that I didn't buy the chill pills with the child proof caps. Those are too tough to open when your palms are sweaty.

One of those little preschoolers rang our doorbell one morning to ask if she could play with my delinquent non-name-writer. It was about 10:00 am. She looked at me and started giggling, pointing and saying, "You're still in your pajamas!!" In case you're wondering, if you miss a chill pill dose, you do NOT have to wait until the next scheduled dosage. It's not possible to OD on these things.

I'm out of town again, and today - AGAIN - forgot to call and renew our already late library books from our local library ... which is like Cheers cause everybody knows our name ... not to mention the head librarian chic is one of our church members. So, do I really care about the mounting fine, or do I care that I will be perceived as irresponsible? Um, hello? Fine schmine! I want people to think that I'm something I'm not! Pardon me as I grab a quickie, dissolve-on-your-tongue chill pill and face the fact that sometimes I AM irresponsible. I'll proudly strut in there next week with that pile of overdue books, pay my fine and hold my head high. I'll probably have something in my teeth, too.

Some days, if I stop and actually think about what it takes to organize three children, encourage their learning, cook for everyone, make sure we even have food in the house to cook for everyone, keep the house somewhere just above the minimum standards of a state health inspection, keep gas in the car, get out of the house but avoid any places that would be miserable with the kids in tow, make minor repairs to the house, mend clothing, soak bad stains, keep the litter box smell from knocking over people before they even make it up our walk, be a rockin' hot wife that is always in the mood, and do all of this while studying scripture with the ferver of Beth Moore and serving the poor with the passion of Shaine Claiborne ... and all I've done so far today is draw a funny picture in the dust on my TV cabinet ... well, that's when you need prescription strength chill pills - with codeine.

I was looking at some new approaches to math for next year. Printed out some placement tests, to see if my two oldest were still basically on seperate levels or if they might be able to do math together again. So, I give them the first little test to do for grins, and they both place below where I expected them to. OH DEAR GOD?!?!? A homeschool mother's nightmare!! They're perfectly on track, and all that junk, but apparently there are either some gaps in what they're learning, or (what we all know tends to be the case), different curriculums introduce different concepts at different times. It's no big deal. My kids are not mathmatical idiots. Hmmmm ... is that really what I'm worried about? Nope. I'm worried that I'm an instructional idiot. I'm worried that it's my fault. I'm worried that someone was spying in my window and is standing out in my yard doing a little, "Tsk. Tsk. Your kids are not above grade level in every subject, thereby letting down all other homeschoolers who are out to prove that what we do is valuable." Where's that chill pill? Where did I put the CHILL PILL? I'm SO FRIGGIN' IRRESPONSIBLE I CAN'T EVEN FIND MY FIGURATIVE PILL!!

Oh, wait. Never mind. There it is. It's under the pile of crap on my coffee table.

Can I borrow a sip of your drink? I forgot to make tea ... again.




(photo by Pontus Edenberg)