The internet is my gateway drug to the hardcore information found in published magazines and books. You know my interest is serious if I’ve bought a book off of Amazon or gone and spent an evening reading at our local bookstore. The fact that I have so many books I just have to read that I’ve already done those things multiple times and checked out (and read) a stack of books from the library means that I’ve reached critical mass. Armed with the kind of information that I’ve been inhaling the past few months, I am now pretty well sold on homeschooling.
I’ve always been like this. If I have an interest I just have to research the stuffing out of what ever topic I’m currently stuck on, be it hamsters or educational theory. When we were deciding to start our family I read more pregnancy and baby books than I can even remember, and then proceeded to develop such obscure complications that they weren’t even mentioned in the scads of information I’d processed in preparation. Kind of figures, doesn’t it?
The great thing about being weird like this is that in the process of all of the insecure, perfectionistic searching for answers is that by the time you make your decision, you really know why you are doing it. You know exactly where you stand and you can articulate your reasoning. Being a very verbal person, I need to be able to completely verbalize my reasoning to myself. I do not do well running off of gut feelings and instinct; I like my facts cold and hard, and I like my opinions to make a heck of a lot of sense when argued.
The trouble with needing those facts and logically reasoned out excuses is that sometimes I don’t jump on a gut feeling that does deserve some attention. Sometimes I take longer in making a change than I really needed to or even ought to have taken. However, I am pretty comfortable with myself, knowing that it is better for me to be a few weeks off with my head on straight and my eyes on the target and my heart in a happy place on the matter.
I think the biggest reason why it took so long for us to come to this place is that I don’t have one solid reason for wanting to have him learn at home. I have many reasons that span all the way from knowing my son’s temperament to disagreeing with some of the very fundamental principles that public schooling uses to educate. I will go more into those reasons later.
So, we will remove Jonas from school. We are not 100% certain if we will do this before the school year is up or wait out the last five weeks. We will be finding out in the next few days if Chris will be able to take leave for a two week vacation that we would like to do in May. That is one of our largest deciding factors, as well as Jonas’ increasing dislike and frustration with school. We are on our third week of a substitute who makes Jonas’ regular teacher look like a saint, and he is already growing by leaps and bounds through our efforts to work with him at home. So we will see. An early exit might be just what he needs.
I do plan to blog about many of the reasons why I am choosing this course for us for right now. Because there are so many different facets to my choice, I’m sure it will take a few posts. If you have any questions, do ask them here, and I will answer them.
Posted by Lou on April 30, 2008 @ 8:59 pm | 13 Comments
Are you a Gadget Geek? I’m not. I am a die hard notebook list maker who tends to forget to take her cell phone out with her, much to her husband’s dismay. You see, although I am not a huge fan of gadgetry, I married the King of all Things That Beep, Signal & Download. So you can imagine that me reviewing a new software designed to turn your cell phone into your control center might create some interesting challenges like, “how do I make the phone hook to the dadgum computer, honey?” But, I am pleased to say that I have figured it out, and I understand how to run the technology on my little phone, and it is pretty cool. SimplyMobile Moms is a unique, free service that helps Moms stay connected and organized via mobile phone, keeping our lives running smoothly when we are away from home.
If you go to Simply Mobile Moms you can check it out and learn how you can access a bunch of useful info like:
On the go directions from Mapquest, GoogleMaps, Yahoo! etc.
Send pictures to relatives and friends
Read an article or share your favorite news with friends
Download product pictures to aid shopping for specific items (ie: 5 cool birthday gifts to look for)
Send a “honey-do list”
Keep your daily details (work appointments, kids activities, phone #’s, etc.) at hand with you
I really like that it can keep recipes with me for when I’m shopping and can’t remember what exactly goes into Taco Soup. I have called my mother and grandma several times from the grocery store trying to remember what I need to buy.
Now, the best and most awesome part of this technology? You can read your favorite blogs when you’re out and about, bored waiting for a kid to get out of school or done with her ballet lesson or just stuck in a long grocery line. Think of it! Life as Lou archives to fill the mundanity! For Free!Seriously, check it out!
Posted by Lou on April 29, 2008 @ 6:31 pm | 6 Comments
It all started a few weeks ago when Jonas discovered the Dragonolgy books at the local bookstore. He was enraptured. He wanted them all, and the more expensive they were, the more he wanted them. Now, I am all about buying books for my children, and I have spent embarrassing amounts of money on them in the past six years. (The first thing I bought to prepare for my first baby was not baby gear. It was about fifteen books my kid just had to start off with when he was still a bug eyed noodle in my womb. Priorities, right?) However, these Dragonology books are expensive, and I’m already buying him several chapter books a month. We discussed the price of the books, and even put it into comparisons like “five Magic Tree House books for the cost of one Dragonology book.” Jonas understood the concept, but did argue that it was a really, really cool book, and I had to agree. It is pretty awesome.
I gave the usual “maybe for your birthday” answer, and thought it would be over, but throughout the next few weeks those books just kept coming back up. Every trip to the bookstore involved him spending an hour perusing several of them and ended with more pleas to take one home. This was not a passing fancy. We also had several talks about the cost of things and how expensive many of our wants are. He was really bummed about not having any money, so I gave him the opportunity to earn some, and earn it he did.
I do not believe that children should be paid for doing every day chores. I think that routine home maintenance is something that you learn to do because it is a part of life, a part of taking care of your family, and a part of contributing to a healthy society. Because of this, I couldn’t have him just sweep the floors to earn the money. Instead, I had him bake cookies to sell on the curb. He did nearly all of the work involved in baking them. He measured, mixed, rolled out the dough balls and even cleaned up after himself. The only thing I did was put the cookies through the oven. He made a cookies for sale sign ( I made one too), and he sat outside with our piano bench and a few plates of cookies for an hour and a half.
He sat for the entire first half an hour with absolutely no sales. People drove by, smiled and waved, which drove Jonas mad because every time a person acknowledged him, he thought they were going to stop. His little sister had to be banned from the front yard for cookie rustling. This was serious stuff to Jonas.
(Could you resist that face? I couldn’t.)
After much patience on his part, I finally got on the phone and called two friends, both who were kind enough to drop by or send one of their kids to buy a cookie. I called Chris at work and he told his coworkers what was up, and a few stopped by as well.
(Aw, Rosy and a perfect stranger buyin’ cookies! See how stoked Jonas is?)
People came in spurts, even quite a few who the little entrepreneur’s mama didn’t call behind his back, and when he finished up, there were four cookies left and he was $15.50 richer! He was extremely excited and wanted to go to the bookstore right then, but I explained to him that he still didn’t have enough cash to buy the book from the store, but I had found the book on Amazon for only $13.50, so he could order it and even have some pocket change left over. He is already stalking the mailman.
Posted by Lou on April 25, 2008 @ 11:31 pm | 7 Comments
Art happens at our house.
I must tell you guys, my mind has been completely preoccupied with my children for over two months now. I’m feeling such a pull inward toward my family and my home, and away from the rest of the world. I have always tried to make the very best choices that I could for my family. I think that much of the time, I have done well. I haven’t done as well as I would like, but I think that given my set of personal challenges involving health, pregnancies, temperament, our affiliation with the air force, and the other usual everyday stumbling blocks in the road, I have navigated these things with success. My children are healthy. My children are intelligent. My children know that they are loved. My children love to read, love music, love each other, and love God. A person could do worse.
I find myself wanting more. I want more peace in my home. I want my children with me. I want to be enjoying our life together, despite problems, despite my imperfections. I want to do things differently, more peaceably, more wholly.
I have spent many hours in silent debate with myself, engaging in rational skepticism, questioning who I am, what my goals are, and what I’m doing to accomplish those goals, and why I am choosing to live within the perimeters that the world has set as typical.
I have noticed that I have changed. I am not the same person I was a few years ago; I’m not even the same person I was a year ago, and I’m happy for that. Life is about growth and change. My priorities remain the same. God, family, happiness still reign supreme, but my motivations are different, my capacity to work and be patient and accepting has increased. My understanding of myself has grown immensely, and I am finding joy in mothering that I have never found before. I think, just maybe, I’m becoming less selfish.
I am a very selfish person by nature. I am a person who requires extra self time, more time to recharge just me and focus on my goals and what I want. Over the past few months, I’ve both needed and wanted less. I’ve recharged by more perfectly fulfilling my role as a mother and homemaker. Oh, I still need my me time, but it is less, and when I am present for my family, I am wholly present and filled with a lot of joy and peace in what I am accomplishing within that sphere. Children are demanding, and when you add health concerns and other large stresses to the mix, my first response has been to escape. I rarely need to escape anymore. That is no small blessing.
This change, among many others, has led me to want to make different and better choices for my family. Some of these are very doable, and others are dreams that are beyond my reach. Some have been a long time coming, and others are more recent observations. I plan to share these with you guys, but, as I said, I’m still working my brain around them all, trying to figure out what will work and what will need serious tweaking.
I am not comfortable with change, and find that old habits die hard with me. Self discipline isn’t my forte, and changes require that. After months of consideration, I think I’m up for it.
Posted by Lou on April 24, 2008 @ 8:22 pm | 3 Comments
By now, I’m sure that you have noticed the chin. There used to be two chins. I wanted a simple, redesigned header awhile back and the friend playing around with it accidentally deleted the old blog header. However, the chins are apparently not part of the header, they are in an overlap, one that overlapped into the sidebar, which thankfully, miraculously, after much work another friend was able to find and remove. However, the last chin seems to be attached to the post side of the blog, and is apparently here to stay.
It drives me crazy. Does it drive you crazy?
I am sorely tempted to redo the entire thing, except that my web design skills are only slightly worse than my sewing skills, so I know that nothing I come up with will be up to my standards, there fore, I have failed before I have even tried. Ahh, the joy of perfectionism.
So there we are. A chin. Eeech.
Posted by Lou on April 23, 2008 @ 10:07 am | 4 Comments
Do you remember that clean, well organized scrapbook room of mine? On the surface it looks pretty good, but underneath the scrappy exterior lies a wealth of sewing supplies, all unorganized and almost unused. There are about six half finished projects, including an entire denim quilt top, a wall hanging, quilt pieces, and yards of fabric purchased with big plans that I never got around to.
I dumped it all out the other night and went through it. I haven’t thrown out a pair of jeans in twenty years. I have moved a shower curtain to three different states because I look at it and I don’t see a shower curtain, I see a fairy costume. I have two yards of day-glo pink vinyl and I don’t know why. I have extremely limited sewing skills. I’ve made a few quilts and a few dresses (with supervision). I have mad seam ripping skills from years of practice. I do not think in such a way that allows me to turn things inside out and form seams; I cannot visualize it at all. I have amazing creative visions and no way to carry them out. It is infuriating. I shouldn’t be let inside of a fabric store and yet I keep going back. Like today when I went and bought more felt that I may or may not actually use. It is an illness.
If you want to know more about the mess, I strongly suggest that you click on the photo and read my notes. Confession: it’s good for the soul.
Posted by Lou on April 22, 2008 @ 6:58 pm | 5 Comments
Get free blog up and running in minutes with Blogsome | Theme designs available here
RSS .92 | RDF 1.0 | RSS 2.0 |
Comments RSS 2.0
