Some days, homeschooling is really hard! We are in the process of packing our house to move and finding a new house. So we have added visiting properties, reviewing and submitting offers, getting paperwork together to sell a house and get a mortgage loan on the new house, and all the other stuff that goes with buying/selling to the normal stuff of taking care of the baby, preschool, 5th grade, laundry, cleaning the house, grocery shopping, teaching Sunday School, teaching Wed. night church program, the list just goes on and on.
This morning Brandyn and I were up earlier and decided to go ahead and start school. I had started packing in the laundry room while he was working. He had just called me to help him with a math question when the phone rang. I muted the ringer and continued to explain. Then the phone rang again (this time it is the friends who are buying our house!). So I again muted the ringer and finished explaining the math problem. By this time my daughter was up and needed clothes laid out, breakfast and her hair fixed. So I started on that while I returned the second telephone call -all the while I have step ladder in my laundry room and a half packed box in the way in the hallway floor!. It turns out that the man who was coming to check our septic tank for the buyers was running early and was in fact in my driveway, and the buyers weren't here yet. So I went out to meet the septic guy and show him where the septic was and etc. Then I came back in, and returned the first phone call, while clearing the box and ladder out of my hallway . While I was talking the home buyer came to the door to ask me to flush the toilet (for the septic guy!!). So on my way to do that, I got off the phone and heard that the baby had woken up. As I was getting him changed, the buyer came back in (I had told her just to come back in when she was done!) so Cameron and I headed to the living room -mind you, Cameron is still in his diaper!! On the plus side, I did have his clothes in my hand so I could go ahead and dress him!
Fast forward a bit and I am in the kitchen, having just finished preschool math. Ruthie is working on her handwriting, Brandyn is working on his history, and Cameron is supposed to be working on his breakfast (though really he is doing better working on playing at this point!). I start grading Brandyn's history self test and his math lesson for the day. Math has some points I can tell we need to review and he missed waaayyy too many things on his history. Then I hear Cameron at the desk in the playroom (dangerous territory for a little guy) and I head off to see what he is doing when my daughter tells me she is done with her handwriting and needs something else to do. I go on in to see what the baby is doing to find him with a green highlighter, which he has very happily covered his shirt in. I got him up, put him in his playpen (without the highlighter), put his shirt in the wash and got him a new one, all the while wondering if I had totally lost my mind!
There are days like this in the life of many parents, especially those who homeschool. I want to encourage you that when you have days like this- take a deep breath, decide not to quit, and then figure out how exactly to go on. In our case, I reworked our school calendar and we are going to take a break from school starting next Monday until we get settled in our new house.
It is so unusual for my 5th grader to do poorly in his schoolwork- and it tells me that he is not getting the attention to work on it that he needs. It will mean we will be schooling through June, but it will be well worth the break now! I love the flexibility homeschool allows us, because we are able to change our schedule as needed. Take full advantage of that and hang in there, it is SO worth it!
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