This is a place for those of us in the trenches of homeschooling our kids. I think of this blog as one big love letter to the frazzled, over scheduled, harried moms out there. We struggle to find time to give our kids that magical education we envisioned when we first dreamed of homeschooling. This is the place where that dream meets the reality of never enough time in swiftly passing days. It’s where our ideals meet the honest to goodness reality of our actual children.
I’ve followed a few homeschool Instagramers. Their photos are beautiful, their children are well dressed and studious, their homes are gorgeous and well kept. They always have coffee sitting next to their well organized planners. They have great ideas and I find some value from keeping those ideals in my mind but they do not reflect my reality.
My homeschool looks more like me dragging myself out of bed when a three year old informs me that I’m required to wipe his bottom. I blearily get myself dressed(ish) and ready and I head downstairs where my older kids are already halfway through breakfast. I settle a few fights while I brew my coffee and cruise facebook. I clean up breakfast and ring the bell (yes, I have an actual bell) and read to my kids. I convince them that we really do need to do school, yes, we all do. We go through the schedule that I’ve convinced myself we can do. If we don’t have any appointments we might actually finish.
It’s more likely that we have music lessons or co-op or Odyssey of the mind or dance or a field trip. In that case our day begins with a blaring iphone and a faster breakfast, a harried hunt for shoes and me carrying about 15 tote bags to the car.
I realize that none of this makes homeschooling sound at all attractive. It’s messy and hard and there are days when I see that big yellow bus and I wonder why on earth I’m doing this instead of off making some money or doing yoga or something. But then I get to have a really great discussion about the fall of Rome with my big kids or my little ones need my help to make a medieval hat like they saw in a book. I get to be the one there to have those conversations and participate with them as they learn.
Those moments are what brings me back to it even when its hard and those are the moments this blog will be about. These moments and all the messy, beautiful, hard times in between without the censorship of a photo-op.
Messy Homeschool 