"Enjoy the LITTLE THINGS in life for one day you will look back and realize they were the big things."


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Come on in and sit awhile while I talk about the "Little Things" in life. I will share my journey of everyday life.... homeschooling, raising my children, homesteading, gardening, health and wellness, and real life.

Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Chain Gang and Being Realer Than REAL

We make our kids bathe each other assembly line style and my husband wears a T-shirt that says, "Failure is not an option" just for the occassion!! LOL!!

Well, we do sometimes get them all in the tub at the same time to make it quicker! Notice Caden is even doing his share by washing the Ken doll! Hehehe! Cody is a public school teacher and the shirt is for the two TAKS testing days.... another good reason not to send our kids to public school. Teachers do not even like all this testing or the concept of "having to" teach the TAKS (or other test).


I started out my homeschooling trying to do "all the stuff", but I have to say that I have stopped some of the testing. I know what he/she understands and if he/she gets it we just move on. If he/she does not get it, then we work on it more or move on and come back to it. Some of the testing is unnecessary unless you are just testing to see how well the child "tests". Should we really be spending so much time teaching "testing" if we have made the choice to homeschool? Well, not I!! I am going to use those "tests" this summer like regular worksheets to keep the knowledge we have learned fresh in these little minds (math and phonics). Spelling is obviously a bit different, so we do test that in that I call it out and let my child write it down on paper.... or dry erase board... or just tell me the correct spelling. Let's just say grading is optional. Sometimes I say, "100!" or "Your grade would be 90", but for the most part we just re-write missed words or talk about the spelling rules that go with it. There are no recorded grade books here!


While I am keeping it real I will just say that by mid-week this week I made the decision to take the rest of the week off (W, Th, F) from schooling because I realized I had a few extra things going on this week. Rather than add to the stress I decided to just postpone schooling and focus on cleaning and special projects. Guess what? I should have just kept on schooling. I have not had any real accomplishments in the areas I thought I would and all the "extra things" got changed around!! Ughh! Now I just feel unaccomplished. As I look around not ONE THING has gone smoother... laundry has been piling up... the kids have been lazy... like me... and I have dishes in my sink (my pet peeve)... we have not even done anything I planned. So I am depressed!
So... WHEW!... That was this afternoon and now it is late in the evening hours. I have to GIVE MYSELF A BREAK! Upon reflection I remember that on Wednesday I had a nice lunch out and shopping trip with my kids for about 2 1/2 hours... and back at home they played... and I watched them. On Wednesday we took a walk into the town square and spent some time at the library, wandered into a children's boutique/resale shop, played in a "secret garden" we found, observed the dye in flowers, pondered thoughts on a dead frog, and returned home to eat lunch. Again, the kids played while I observed and later that day the two older ones made bracelets. Today my kids lazed away the morning (as did I.. as much as one can with four kids and their arms full), had a lightning speed breakfast, played with another family of five kids, had a quick lunch and the kids played some more. I then, cut up some more meat for make ahead meals and threw everyone in the van for a much needed venture out of the house where we went to a friend's home to prepare dinner and enjoy a rare visit with my dear friend Kim and her wondeful family.


We are home now and as I ponder these thoughts I realize I have not been lazy... nor have my kids been. I am just not the SuperMom I have built up the expectation that I try to be. My mother-in-law called me a SuperMom recently and while that is an honor it is just not real. I am just a normal mom trying to make it through. Now, what is it that makes me so hard on myself? Part of it is a high expectation for myself and part of it is not being able to control all that can sometimes change in a blink of an eye. Another part is finding out sad news and not realizing how much it affects you until it manifests itself in a moment of depression. These are a few of my thoughts and "change of schedule" moments this week that threw me into momentary depression and self-pity:

  • I ran into a special lady from my former church and the switch has been a recent one. I miss those people!.. and love those people!... and one of those people died and was buried the day before without me knowing!... He had just found out he had leukemia and suddenly died of a heart attack. Obviously, God was ready to see him! This man was a co-worker of my Daddy's years ago and I am reminded of the little toy that is in my car that he purchased upon Sierra's birth. Sahara enjoys it now. He is my Daddy's age. If you follow my blog you may remember that my Daddy had a heart attack recently. He survived. This makes me more aware of the possiblity we could have faced with my own daddy.
  • I did not get all my laundry done and I know that will now consume part of my weekend and once again my husband will feel he has to chip in on that. I know he would like to relax some, too.
  • I thought I would be running out for some daytime visits with friends, but upon hearing about my plans my husband wanted to go. A great thing, but that changed the plan to evening and weekend visits. I am thankful he wants to be with us and our friends!!! He so desires those getaways more than I do sometimes. He is a "GO-go-goer" and NEEDS to get out of the house. We could not leave him behind. And it looks like some of that weekend visiting might be changing again to avoid a sickness... Hmmmmm... ;) .. not sure, yet.
  • Today I was supposed to teach a young girl some sewing and we had to change that. We will do it next week, but I wanted to spend the day sewing with my kids, too. My fault... I did not do it.
  • The very appointment that made me realize that I wanted to take the three days off... well, I cancelled that today, also. See, I just do not think that I want to go to the doctor's office with the Swine Flu thing going on. The first U.S. death was in Houston only two hours aways from where we live. That nine month check-up is not gonna happen!! We have never skipped a well check, but I just do not want a well check to turn into a get virus visit.

Is any of it a big deal? No. To me right now everything is a big deal and then, I feel ridiculous. I hate to let people down. And I have hardly been home ... or still long enough to get the things done that I sometimes aspire to do. So, this is me... REAL ... with all my imperfections and crazy thoughts... and crazy depressed moments... and then, sane or somewhat sane, again! :)

He turned the water into wine

Looking back I see the many times

He made the simple things divine

With the touch of your hand

You changed this heart of mine...

Song Reference: Water Into Wine by Kathy Troccoli

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YC_uCE5Agxg

Thank you Lord for turning my bad into good!!

1 comment:

  1. With a sheepsish grin, I will thank you posting this.

    I really liked this post - and the picture (how she's holding a doll LOL!). My husband's sitting here and loves that your husband is PS teacher and you homeschool. If that doesn't speak volumes, I don't know what does.

    I too am super behind on laundry, in fact, I'm sitting here next to a pile of ironing as tall as me (that's not saying much I suppose). I gave up on my week long ago, Ben is teething and everyone has their mid April cold, it's raining so we can't go outside which is the only place where everyone is happy. I'm in survival mode. One minute at a time.

    I forgot to make the swine flu/Tx connection with you! Hope you're not freaking out. It's hard not to when the gov't is, I imagine. If it makes you feel any better, my mom (the world's largest germaphobe-I'm serious, we won't see her for a couple weeks bc of this cold) pointed out that 36,000 people die every year in the US from the flu and so far only one from the swine flu.

    I'm sorry to hear about your dad's health. My husband's grandfather had a few heart attacks about 20-30 years ago, and is still here in his mid-eighties!

    Guess I should go iron now.

    ReplyDelete

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