Homeschooling (Part One)

January 15 will stand in my memory as the day that things started to change.

I have friends who “homeschool” their kids and I've always applauded and respected their decision to do so. I've also maintained that it's not something I could ever see my family doing.

And then, on January 15^th, a friend challenged me: “Are you doing what's best for your kids? If you're not doing what's best for your kids, what's stopping you?” (This is my paraphrase, the words that have rolled around in my head for months now.)

When I actually allowed myself to think about what's best for my kids, I realized a few things:
1) I was selling God short. He set me in place, with my husband, to guide and direct these hearts.
2) God is bigger than my perceived incompetence.
3) Other than standing in line, there wasn't a whole lot that they couldn't learn at home, in less time.

Still January 15^th, I mentioned it to my husband.

We'd had this conversation before, kind of a “what if...” discussion. He's always been staunchly opposed to the idea, for many reasons, most of which were steeped in assumptions that we later learned were totally unfounded. So I broached the subject once again. I told him of the exchange with the aforementioned friend and asked what he thought. 

 “No.” As expected.

I knew I wasn't going to win him over with my clever nonesixtent debating skills, so I did all there was left to do. I started praying about it.

As I prayed about it, I read more about the idea and chatted with friends who are deep in the thick of teaching their children at home. And I got more excited.

Clue #1 that this time was different – I was actually excited at the thought of it!

I prayed and read and prayed and chatted and prayed and watched my kids and prayed and dreamed.

About a week later, I found myself sitting in a van, alone with my husband. We had dropped the kids off and were heading out to see a James Bond flick at the theatre. As we drove away from the house, I felt this urge to bring up the homeschooling discussion once more. I fought it down, as I had since that first conversation on January 15. The urge came right back. I pushed it down. It would not go away. So, I figured now was the time to talk about it.

I tentatively brought it up, laying out the reasons that I couldn't let go of the idea that this was right for our family. He listened. He had questions. I had some answers. He had more questions. I didn't have answers. But we were talking about it, actually considering it as an option.

Clue #2 that this time was different – We were actually talking about it beyond “Well?” “No.”

A month passed. We continued to consider the idea, researching answers to questions, talking with friends who have first-hand experience, talking with friends who knew us but had no experience with homeschooling. We were both intrigued by the idea, but still hesitant. While my husband went into long-term research/planning mode, I started day-dreaming, which led to actual dreaming, at night.

Clue #3 that this time was different – I literally could not stop dreaming about it!

Suddenly everything became an opportunity to teach my children. I had

so much fun thinking of ways to incorporate learning into our every day lives. We already tried to do that, but when I considered the possibility of homeschooling I realized that our learning opportunities were endless!

As I type this, without having done one day of homeschooling, my heart is racing, just thinking about all the fun I've got stored up in my little brain. As I shared my ideas with the kids, they got really excited. The more we talked about it, the more they hoped that our “if” would turn into a “when.” Because we were saying “If we homeschool in the fall...”

Read the next chapters here:
Homeschooling (Part Two)
Homeschooling (Part Three)

A Salute to the Mother of a Pre-Schooler

How quickly we forget...

Quiet Time, that magical hour from 1:00 to 2:00 in the afternoon, was my favourite part of the day for several years.  I always intended it to be my cleaning time, since:
- my kitchen was always messy from breakfast, snacks, and lunch,
- my bathroom was always messy from kids running in and out without paying attention to the precise location of the toilet,
- my laundry room was getting filled from the mess of living, and
- my floors moderately resembled a muddy forest floor that had been used for a picnic.

And then my kids grew up.  They learned to clean up after themselves by placing their dishes on the counter and helping to empty the dishwasher.  They 2 out of 3 of them learned to aim for the hole in the middle of the toilet.  They started folding their own laundry and putting it away.  They learned not to track mud/food/clothes all over the house.

So Quiet Time became family fun time!  Sometimes you will find us playing board games or card games together in the afternoon.  Sometimes, we'll be out riding bikes.  You might find us in the back-backyard at the park, hitting/catching the baseball, or playing basketball.  Or, very rarely, if I just want some downtime, I'll declare it Quiet Time once more and send my kids off to read for an hour or so.

Today I found myself walking in the shoes of Wanda Whoopie-Cushion from years past.  The older kids were off at school and the younger kids were here at the house, making a mess and having a happy time playing.  Now, at 1:00 pm, I once again have blocks on my floor, dishes in my sink, dishes in my counter, dishes on the table, shoes all over the entryway, spots of this and that all over the bathroom sink, and laundry piling on the floor.

"Girlie, it is Quiet Time!" I declared.  "You can have a nap or you can read books on the bed.  When this number *gestures to the clock* is a "2" Quiet Time is done.  Okay?"

"Okay" she answered.  She's done this at Auntie Wanda's house before.

Auntie Wanda has never needed Quiet Time as much as she needs it today.

Auntie Wanda salutes the mommies and daddies of pre-schoolers.  So much energy packed into such a tiny frame.  So much mess to be made, whether externally-sourced or internally-sourced.  So much fun and joy to find and welcome with each passing moment.  So many squishy arms around my neck, ready to give me sticky hugs and smiley kisses.

So much love.

It is 1:20.  I need to stop playing on my "cah-puter" so that I can clean up to make room for more mess.

Giggling with the Girlies

Since I am the parent of  7, 9, and 10 year old children, I had forgotten that everything is hilarious when you're four years old. 

I took my nieces shopping tonight.  They are staying with us while their parents get a much-needed vacation for a few days.  As we turned onto the main street to go to the store, which happens to be the same direction we would turn to go to their house, the girls asked if we were going to their house to get "Pepper," their black poodle.  I made a joke of it so they wouldn't get homesick and said (in a silly voice, of course), "Nooo!  Pepper can't go shopping with us...  Can you imagine Pepper buying milk at the store?"  The girls giggled and settled into silence.

Until I heard a sneaky little voice pipe up in the back asking, "Pepper?" and then erupting into giggles.  That got the other one laughing and we laughed the whole way to the store, through the store, and home from the store.  All from one little word which turned into one very silly joke.

It's so fun to be able to just let go and laugh about silly things.  I think that sometimes the laughter masks other emotions, but it's more fun to laugh than to cry.  We've had tears today, but we've had much more laughter.  As I kissed the girls good night and tucked them in, they were still smiling, content from a day of giggles, hugs, reading, singing and family.

Kids will not remember the little things that make them cry if we give them enough happy memories of love and laughter.

Prancercising

It's been a long week... 

It's been hot. I've been busy. I warmed up some freezer food (chicken nuggets and french fries) for dinner last night.  Folks expressed their displeasure.  My hubby's been REALLY busy at work.  Kids have been running around screaming. 

It seemed that the evening might end in fisticuffs.  (Not really.  I just wanted a chance to use the word fisticuffs.)

And then we learned about Prancercising.

And then this happened:
 


And all is right with the world again.

Fun with Snowbirds

We're a family that enjoys learning together.  A few weeks ago I was looking at the news headlines with my 10 year old.  We saw that the Snowbirds, a Canadian flying team, would be performing in Niagara Falls on May 29.  My son quickly added it to the calendar "just in case you forget, Mom."

I haven't forgotten, but we hadn't made plans for it either.  I glanced at the calendar this morning.  This reminded me that, yes, the Snowbirds are still planning to be flying tonight.  (Click over here to read an article from the perspective of a journalist who got to fly shotgun with the Snowbirds a few years ago.)  We're planning a picnic dinner on the grassy area around Niagara Falls, followed up by an amazing air show at 6:00.  I hope to pick up a book at the library, before we go, so we can read about how planes actually work.  It should keep our minds engaged while we're waiting for the show to start.

The Snowbirds fly over Niagara Falls on a media demonstration flight on Sept. 4. 2009. (Ken Lin/Snowbirds/DND)

I love that my kids feel free to add life events to the family calendar.  As family members, we're all walking down the same path, so we might as well do it together!  

If you're not around to join us for a cool air-show tonight, make your own plans to do something fun with your family.  The kids may not remember the details of all the things you do together, but they will know that they are valued and loved by their parents.

Exploring our neighbourhood

I have discovered a new favourite place to "get away" with the family.  The best part?  It's FREE!

It's only a 10 minute drive from my house, but it feels like we're in the middle of a forest.  Well, that's probably because we are.  But it's a small enough forest that we can explore without being worried about getting lost.  And there are lots of fallen trees from last year's wind storm, so the climbing is pretty fun, too.

 Most of the paths are level enough that Grandma can join us for a hike if she's visiting for the day.

 The kids were begging us to go back again with the other set of visiting grand-parents, so we made it happen this past weekend.

Being out in the forest brings out the best in all of us, even when it means that my hubby decides to be sneaky and tells the kids to pose on this ledge...

 And then tells me to turn and run with him, away from the kids, as fast as I can.

 

(Don't worry, they caught us.)

It's such a beautiful place to explore.  And we haven't even seen half of it in the three times that we've been.  I think we'll need to go back this weekend to see how the tadpoles are doing.

So much to learn!  So much to explore!  We've got our work cut out for us this summer.

Abstinence and Planned Parenthood

I've been following the case of abortionist Kermit Gosnell.  I'm one of the few.  Apparently, only about 25% of people know more than a name or basic fact about this news story.  Typically, about 60% of the population will hear a news story about an ongoing first-degree murder investigation of this magnitude, so if you're one of the 25%, give yourself a pat on the back.

Since I'm following this news story, I'm finding a lot of very disconcerting information about abortion clinics and the ins and outs of how these abortions are carried out.  I was reading this article, explaining the different methods used for abortions.  (I encourage everyone, pro-choice or pro-life, to read up on the different abortion methods available, as we cannot truly make informed choices without first knowing what is really involved in this type of procedure.)  The article was very basic but summarized it all by saying that all of these methods had the same final result.  Only one was considered first-degree murder while the rest were legal and subsidized by the government.

Reading further into that particular blog, I read a bit about Planned Parenthood and abstinence.  I was curious to see what Planned Parenthood's stance on abstinence was, so I searched and found this page, a detailed explanation of abstinence, void of any religious sentiment.  I was actually really happy to see this, not thinking that they would have so brilliantly endorsed abstinence as a 100% effective means of preventing pregnancy and STDs.

For the record, about 28% of respondents (to the survey on the right) thought oral sex counted as abstinence.  Right...

You can see from the picture that just above the link for the page on "Abstinence" was a chart comparing effectiveness of birth control options.  I was very interested in seeing what this said, and how the other birth control methods compared to abstinence, so I clicked on it.  Here's a screen shot of what I saw:

I found the "No-Abstinence-Option Birth Control Option Chart"

I couldn't find where abstinence was listed on the chart.  I thought maybe I was missing something, so I double-checked the title of the chart and double-checked that I hadn't scrolled too far.  Nope.  They just didn't think it was worth putting the most effective birth control method on the chart.  Even though it's a chart meant to teach and compare how effective birth control methods can be.

Does that strike anyone else as a little weird?  If their goal is to inform people of ALL the choices available, why don't they have the most effective choice on that handy dandy little chart? It's the only choice that makes all that stuff not happen every single time.

What gives, Planned Parenthood?  Do you think maybe you could put the most effective birth control method on your handy dandy chart so we can actually see all our options?


p.s.  Personal Testimony:  I found abstinence to be 100% effective.  Every day that I didn't have sex, I didn't get an STD or get pregnant.  It really is amazingly effective!