The Bad Boy in Esther's class

I used to homeschool my children -- all of them. Nowadays, I have one official homeschooler and two little ones who are learning every moment they are at home (and anywhere else, for that matter).

I have LOADS of reasons to homeschool! When I was a college student and I was introduced to the concept of homeschooling, the first thing that came to mind was: "Oooohh! I wish I could have been homeschooled!"

It sounded so great -- to be able to use my time according to my own interests and not have to play the "game" of figuring out what the teacher wanted and trying to meet those requirements rather than trying to get educated.

And, surprise, surprise, I struggled in the social area.

For the first six miserable years of my public schooling, I was the nerd. After that, I somehow broke out of my shell and learned to smile and enjoy some of what public school had to offer in the area of social life... I even got voted onto the homecoming court my senior year.

So, I can't say the social reasons are my biggest reasons to choose homeschooling, but they are definitely counted among them.

When my oldest child, who has an October birthday -- which translates into being the oldest in the class, was already reading before he even started kindergarten, I thought, "Hey! I'll give him the gift I never had: the gift of not having to deal with all the drama at school."

No homework (although some could argue that all of homeschool is homework); no tests; no grading; no kids to bully you...

Well, for a variety of reasons, which I won't list here, that oldest son (plus my twin daughters) are now in public school. Maybe they'll decide to homeschool again... maybe not. At this point, I'm leaving it up to them.

Every once in a while, they'll describe some situation going on at school, and I try really hard to figure out how to interject into the conversation something along the lines of: "Hmmmm, I wonder if we ever had a similar situation when we homeschooled. Hmmmm..."

One of the recent issues Esther has discussed with me is the bad boy in her class. The teacher has been losing her patience with him lately, particularly about how he doesn't ever do his homework. She threatened that he would have to miss recess if he doesn't start bringing back worksheets.

Of course, I'm not there having to deal with him day in and day out. I think that is the main reason I was able to have the imaginary response as follows:

Compassion towards the boy, who must be the victim of apathetic parents.

Sincere concern about his future and deep ponderings about how to help him move past the obstacle of an undesirable home life.

Calm replies to his claims of having not done the homework, and encouragement and motivation to put in the extra effort, even if it means missing recess.

It's so easy for me to conjure up such happy images, because I am not an underpaid, overworked teacher having to handle not just the bad boy, but twenty-eight other children as well, five days a week.

I sometimes wish I could homeschool that bad boy! Give him the gift that I always wanted, and that I hope three of my children will soon figure out they want as well.

Wise Words of Other Mothers

I'm hurrying and writing this blog post before I head off to my book club!

I. LOVE. MY. BOOK. CLUB.

Well, more accurately, I love the women who attend the club.

I do, in fact, love to read books and discuss them -- it's a great challenge for my brain to

1) manage my time effectively to the point where I can fit in reading a book a month
2) pay close enough attention to what I am reading to get something out of it that's worthy to share

However, when it comes right down to it, I would get together with these women even if it were a knitting club.

Admittedly, knitting would also be a challenge for my brain.

My overall point of this post, though, is how grateful I am for these women. They are busy moms, too. Most of them homeschool their children. Yet they take time out to bless my life by sharing their thoughts, their wisdom, their talents.

Ya see, it's a multi-faceted book club, in that we spend the first hour or so doing things other than discussing the book. We sing together! We eat -- it's ALWAYS a potluck. We share each others good news -- as well as our burdens. And THEN we discuss the book -- solid discussions, with lots of insights and applications to our lives.

It's like an intellectual challenge wrapped up in a hug!

I cherish my time with these women, wise women, whose wise words come home with me and help me in my attempts to become wise.

I'll take time to type it again, even though I must jump up and run out the door:

I. LOVE. MY. BOOK. CLUB!!!

Too busy singing

My awesome husband is awesome for lots of reasons... Besides being intelligent, handsome, kind, and hard-working, he's musical!

Now, he'll be the first to tell you that he won't be making CD's of his musical talents to sell to his fans... but that's part of what makes his musical talents so endearing! They may not be professional-level offerings, but he offers them anyway -- and blesses the world, or his little corner of it, in ways that only he can.

I think there's a lesson in that for those of us who worry that we have to shine like the top of the Chrysler-building before we can share our light... but, alas, that is not the lesson I was going to give for this post, so let me stop digressing and get back to the original purpose!

Recently, my music-man was asked to play the piano at church for when the men meet together. He agreed, under the condition that he would get to practice far in advance! So the person making the arrangements convinced another fellow to play every other week, giving my husband, Ted, two weeks to practice the assigned hymn.

As a family, we are encouraging his success by singing the hymn during our daily devotionals so he can squeeze his practicing in.

At one point during today's practice, Ted stopped playing between verses so he could apologize for the mistakes he had made. A couple of the kids responded that they hadn't noticed the missed notes, because they were too busy singing.

So there's the lesson I intended to get across originally!! If we are each too busy singing our own parts, we won't have the wherewithal to pay undue attention to the mistakes of our accompanists.

Now, it is an important part of the metaphor to note that our accompanists are supposed to lead us: our leaders aren't always perfect and need us to just keep singing even when they've messed up!!!

I sure appreciate my husband's willingness to lead our family -- in many ways beyond just our daily hymns -- even though he knows he's not perfect. And I pledge to keep singing and not take time to notice his mistakes, and trust that he's not too worried about when I get off-tune!

In spite of these errors, and maybe because of how we deal with them, we'll be making beautiful music together!

CLAP at Chitty-chitty BANG BANG

So, I've had rhyming mantras on the brain since Amy's comment requested more... and today I had the thrill of joining my family to see Chitty-chitty Bang-Bang at a LIVE THEATER -- how crazy is that?!

Our neighborhood theater is really quite high class, and generally they enforce an age limit. Today's performace was a special matinee when little ones could attend. I told my three-year-old that we were going to attend a play and could see the confusion in his eyes as I used this verb as a noun. I tried to explain: "It's like a movie, only in real-life!"

What fun to get to see his reactions to the costumes and the dancing and the fog and the incredible props -- including a flying car! Tickets weren't cheap, but I think it was worth every penny... We asked my husband's parents for help with the cost as his gift for Christmas -- thank you, wonderful in-laws! It was magical! (Oh, and the 3 y.o. is generally afraid of bad guys, but we met the Child Catcher afterwards, and my son reported to his grandmother that he was nice to us!)


Since I knew we would be coming home to do chores, ummm, I mean, BIG Bless Our House (what we call the Saturday, more-thorough version of housecleaning) I was excited to hear some good inspirational words...

Teamwork can make a dream work, if we all pitch in and try.
Teamwork can make a dream work, and no mountain is too high!

I must say... I LOVE the concept of a FAMILY TEAM!!!  Maybe it's the cheerleader in me that never really got to come out... although, I was a matmaid for the high school wrestling team (and we took state!) Anyways, teams are a great analogy, because every member of a team has a different role, but every member has the same goal!

© Paha_l | Dreamstime Stock Photos & Stock Free Images

Another couple of phrases that I like for those times when we're rolling up our sleeves and working:

"We're workers, not whiners!" (alliteration is almost as good as rhymes, right?)

"Things don't have wings, they can't fly back to shelves all by themselves" (lyrics from Wee Whispers)

How about you, friendly readers?! What kinds of clever rhymes or alliteration or otherwise have you found to be useful in the quest to motivate and inspire your family team?