the Rules revisted (really long home school thoughts, btw)

Remember my school DO's/DON'T's?

five weeks in, let's revisit:


Don't...
...commit to morning activities for anyone - DONE!
...raise my voice in frustration - NO COMMENT!
...skip days - SO FAR SO GOOD!
...turn on computer before 12pm - EEK...NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.
...start before 9am or go past 12pm - OK? Discovered we didn't need that long but do go that long sometimes just for fun.  Haven't started before 9:30am YET but it isn't bothering me, in the back of my mind, we're still aiming for 9am.
...compare. period. - EEK. I PRAY OVER THIS EVERY MORNING.  STILL NEEDS IMPROVEMENT.
...stick with curriculum that isn't working - MATH NEEDS SOME TWEAKING, TAKING MY OWN ADVICE HERE, SEARCHING FOR SOMETHING TO ADD.
...answer the phone, except for Jake - DONE, with a few explainable exceptions.
...be arrogant - NO COMMENT.
...do any activity outside of schooling from 9am-12pm, Mon-Thurs (or Tues-Fri IF holiday on Mon) - SO FAR SO GOOD.

Do...
...Pray and work on memory verse together, every morning - DONE! VICTORY! (mostly thanks to the curriculum, but I'll take it!)
...Prepare each day the night before - TOTALLY, COMPLETELY UNREALISTIC EXPECTATION.  I have, instead been preparing right after my breakfast/quiet times which might explain the 9:30am start instead of 9am start, but it's working beautifully, no need to adjust to this rule.  I'm DEAD TO THE WORLD by 8pm and get nothing of value done.
...Everyone does Bible and Reading - DONE! except for yesterday morning? random.
...Lydia and Samantha do all - DONE..much to Samantha's dismay.  That girl is a mover! (I have 'no idea' where she got that from ;-)
...9am-12pm only - NO PROBLEM!
...Only as much as fits in 3 hrs - SEE ABOVE.
...Projects that focus on widows/orphans/voiceless continually - We've done two Action Packs for Voice of the Martyrs (so perfect!) and written letters to our World Vision kid but still feel like there could be more going on here.
Dreaming and dreading this all at the same time, easier to just serve on my own, harder to teach them.
...Everyone gets concentrated one on one time with mommy. Min: 5 mins. Max: 30 mins. - Yes and No.  I forget about this one one day and remember it the next.  I'm typically reminded in a not nice way.
...Protect, Build, Trust, Persevere - I have just as many failures in this category as I do victories, hoping to add more to the victories and less to the failures.  
...Get dressed, eat and do chores before each school day starts/before 9am - Pretty sure I added this one to make myself feel better because I already did that...it worked.


More notes:


I feel like this season of my life has been paused to solely focus on finding our school groove.  Last year was very relaxed and I don't mean the bubble bath/champagne relaxed, I mean the no structure/all over the place relaxed (Why is relaxed even allowed to mean that? Seems sacrilege.).  I love the idea of that kind of schooling but aiming for that is like me aiming to have very fair skin with really dark hair (so I can wear really red lipstick), it might be pretty and almost perfect sounding to me but it will never be me, much to my dismay, both of them!
I am not an unschooler.  PHEW! That felt good.
So, I hit pause.  Beyond thankful that we'd just moved and hitting pause seemed natural anyway.
Hitting that button was one huge deciding factor in whether I pursued being a CASA at the other office here in town (the one that didn't reject me!), it was why I declined every, every, every enticing offer to join BSF's, Community Bible Studies or Women's Bible studies/small groups that met in the mornings despite that yearning and longing in my heart to connect deep, fast and knowing that would get me there.  I haven't started any kind of project, art or otherwise, around the house outside of maintenance, since we got here.  (The 1/2 marathon doesn't count.  Exercises is a part of my life, not a project...or, that's the aim anyway.)
There are dreams, desires and plans rattling around all inside me.
Some in my brain, some in my heart, most occupying both spaces.
The pause button may not hold much longer on some of them, they are pushing really hard to get to that play button.


Dreams to defend the orphans and voiceless from right here in suburbia America in bigger and more tangible ways that I am now.  Dreams to empower others to do the same.  Dreams to BE a voice for one or more specific voiceless kids.  Dreams to re-do more furniture.  Dreams to make our home something spectacular to our kids, to my husband and to those who enter here (and by spectacular I don't necessarily mean looks, although that plays a part in what I'm dreaming about).  Dreams to share Jesus with people I love in my life that aren't super connected with Him yet.  Dreams to write books.  Dreams to read more books!  Dreams to travel.  Dreams to.....it just goes on and on.
I rest in knowing that these dreams are not coming to fruition right now because the dream of raising and equipping my kids to their fullest potential is taking all the energy and creativity and time I have right now.  One dream coming true at a time is just fine with me - dreams coming true at all are luxuries in my book.


Deciding on and purchasing Sonlight felt so cliche to me.  It's the most popular (I think?) curriculum in the home school world.  Except when it comes to fashion, I don't typically gravitate towards popular, or maybe I do but don't like admitting it? 
Either way, that purchase was amazing for us.
Structure, but not too much.  Sometimes not enough material, other times too much but in both cases easily adjusted and allows for me to still be creative without requiring every piece of my being.
There are little boxes for me to check off and it's ridiculous how much power those little boxes have over me!  My favorite part of the day is whenever those little puppies are getting CHECKED! 
And it's one thing for me to like it.  I think that is huge and it needs to start there (I may be alone there), with me liking it first.
But lo and behold, the girls are in love too!  The sponges that little brains are at this age are absorbing at a rapid pace.
Egyptians, Romans, Vikings, Adam/Eve, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Job, The Boxcar Children, My Father's Dragon, the earth's rotation, the sun's coarse, continents, mountains, the course of rivers, compass building, Antarctica (Lydia is fascinated with this!), volcano exploding, BOB books, phonograms, Spanish lessons, math games, CAT in the HAT books - EATING. IT. UP.


Lydia has been reading a ton.  She reads us two books a day (unless she's not in the mood, I don't push that.  Maybe there's some unschooler left in me after all?).
Samantha reads one book a day and it's flippin' adorable.
Nora and Sophie are working so hard on their letters writing that I literally almost tear up every day watching them.


The pause button has worked beautifully.
Every morning I have to pray over my short temper, my excitement level  (it hasn't gone down, but I'm fearful for when it does so I just pray really hard it doesn't or that I'll be prepared and all filled up with prayer when it does - sloppy theology, I know), my focus and my rules.
Seriously, without the prayer over it all, there would not be this peace over hitting the pause button like there is right now.


Peace would be a perfect description of where we are, five weeks in.
I realize that five weeks will feel like a drop in the bucket by the end of the year and yet at the same time I am hopeful to see if this same peace will persist through the year.


For our family, peace would be one of the top reasons we home school in the first place so I say 'whoop whoop!' to a victory for at least five weeks!
(It's sounding smaller every time I type it)


Jake and I are huge adversaries to sheltering your children and calling it 'home schooling'.  I like to call it idolatry.  However, we are huge advocates of teaching our children what LIGHT looks like so that when they see DARKNESS it will be unmistakable.


In this season of our lives and in the lives of our kids, we have been called to home school and because the pause button was hit on just about everything else in our lives, we have had a victorious whooping five weeks.  I know without a doubt we will experience trial in this journey so  even though all we've experienced is victory I'm celebrating in my heart and I'm pretty sure they call that Thankfulness.


I am. I am thankful!  Thankful for peace, thankful for the pause button.


(When I say 'all we've experienced is victory' I am talking about the five weeks as a whole.  Be not deceived my friends, I have a list for each day of failures that goes a mile long.  I am a sinner and I pretty much stink at gentleness and kindness.  Really, I stink at them.  If you completely disagree, it's because you have known me for less that a year or only know me here....trust me, or ask my kids.  On second thought, just trust me.)