It’s still September, this month will not end. Every mom I know, home schoolers, public schoolers, private school, doesn’t matter, every single one has crazy eyes this month. We all are getting our kids back into a routine and there aren’t enough hours in any day and never enough days in the week for all the stuff that seems like such a good idea at the end of August.
Here’s the run down in our family. Monday we do school. Tuesday we have co-op all day, we get home about 40 minutes before the Walnut has dance. Wednesday the Peanut has horseback writing lessons while the other kids and I do school at a nearby coffee shop. We usually end up running errands in the afternoon so that day is about done. Peanut does some school work in the car on the way to and from all of this. Thursday we do school until we have Music in the afternoon. Friday we have Odyssey of the Mind in the afternoon. So we really only have one day where all we do is school. The beautiful schedule I had worked out in August got blown up when September hit. I honestly don’t know how to make this all work.
I talked about it with the kids today between horsey lessons and our monthly stop at the nursing home where we practice public speaking. We were eating our lunch on the grass at the side of their parking lot because that is our life right now. I told them how hard this schedule was for me. I told them I wanted them to have a happy school year but that we needed to get things done too. They told me they were having a good time this year and that they wanted to keep it up.
See that picture, this girl is doing something she really loves. She gave up art lessons so she could brush sweat off a smelly beast, I don’t understand that but I respect it.
This is my Walnut doing something else I don’t understand but that she loves. Who cares if it’s on our busiest day? Who cares if my feet are weeping after a day of managing a great big co-op? She is doing something that she loves so how could I not make that happen?
Look at all that wacky creativity happening here! This is part of Odyssey of the Mind and I love it, my kids love it. This one is a no-brainer for us. They solve problems, they work as a team, they get creative, what’s not to like?
And this is how we do it, we love all the things so we get over-scheduled and family and school and those beautiful, unstructured hours of childhood get pushed to the side. I’m keeping it to a minimum but it still feels like too much.
So for now at least, we press on and hope that all this busyness starts to feel like our new normal pretty soon. Hopefully the crazy eyes can be hidden by makeup.
Messy Homeschool 