to cope with a nasty bug that has hit the entire family, one at a time, but of course not all at once and of course hitting me right before Mother’s day. The only one who has not caught it yet is Noah, so we are affectionately referring to him as “Dead Man Walking.” He’s gonna get it… it’s just a matter of time!
Last Friday I took Sam down for the Explore test. Since it was a good distance from our home, (and since gas is well over $3.00/gallon now) we took the day off from school and just played in the church gym while Sam was taking the test. Another mom was there with her school-aged son sitting her her van and so I invited them to come and play with us. They were working on workbooks and the mom told me that he couldn’t possibly take the time off to play as he had not completed his work for the day and since they would be having company over later, they could not afford to miss the school time now! I playfully looked at her son and said, “Well then you better do a good job and hurry up so that you can have some play time!” Apparently he did just that and 30 minutes later he was laughing and playing with my kids in the gym and I got to visit with his mom for a while.
It’s not that my kids couldn’t have brought their math books or reading books to work on as well, but I know from experience that asking them to do their work outside of their usual environment is very difficult. Asking them to do that while I watch over Rosie who is also not in her usual environment is just a nightmare!
But more importantly to me at least, I knew other homeschool families were going to be there and I saw this as a good opportunity to blend in and socialize a bit with other homeschooling families. It seems to me that we will never remember what page we did in science or what math problems we were working on that day, but our memories will always hold the images of fun, friendship and fellowship we make when the opportunity presents itself.
So Friday as a school day, was a bust. By Saturday, I was feeling pretty bad and only was able to sleep in two hour intervals. Needless to say I did not get any housework or medical transcription done. On Mother’s Day I got a little caught up, but was still behind in almost everything. As of Monday morning, I am behind typing for two of my clients, laundry is behind, and housework is marginal (they did make some effort to help me out for Mother’s Day!!) so again homeschooling has to take a backseat to some of the more pressing matters in the household.
And that’s OK! I had everyone do at least one math lesson. The two kids that are working on Spelling Time got their lessons in, and the two that have a piano recital next week put some time in tickling the ivories! The parts that had to get done, got done! Today and tomorrow, I’ll be playing catch up and we’ll probably work like this for the rest of the week keeping in mind that I also have to get the house ready for Izzy’s first communion party, I have 12 more soccer games to live through before the end of the season, a piano recital, a dance recital, fighting with Calvin about attending a local high school prom (I have enough there for an entire post!) and our homeschool group’s dance which Sam will be attending stag!!
What I try to keep in mind is that the public schools are winding down too because they HAVE to be done by a set date! Once I get over the business of this end-of-year stuff, my homeschool can get back on track with a few variations and we can continue through the summertime comfortably. I don’t have to worry about false deadlines and cramming to get a workbook done. We can work at a comfortable pace.
As we work through this May madness I hope to get at least Math and spelling going for the elementery and middle school kids. Sam has his agenda all planned out for him and he knows what to do. If I get time, I’ll add science and literature back into the mix. By the time summer is out I hope to have my new summer schedule all worked out and I’ll post that here too. (It’s going to include the neighborhood kids too! – yep, I’m bringing the Little House Books to the Hood!)
So that’s how my life looks right now. Blogging will be intermittent but not absent! I hope to be back on my game by Wednesday or Thursday!
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