Homeschooling, Week 1

Every year, I begin our homeschooling year with a lofty sense of how it's going to go. The kids will rise, bright and early, come down fully dressed their eager little faces shining...."Oh mummy! I'm ready to learn!" They happily tell me how they rose at 6 and completed their chores and added in a few more just for fun. Their rooms are tidy and they will lovingly help each other. In reality, our first day went something like this:

I woke up at 3:30. The baby had caught his leg between the crib slats and he commenced shrieking. Not that I blame him, mind you. It had to smart. I unstuck his leg, went back to bed and covered my head with a pillow so I couldn't hear him fussing. In all honesty, he fall back to sleep in a matter of minutes. I was just drifting off when the kitten attacked my head. Then my arm. Clearly she was hungry. So, I stumbled out to the kitchen and got her a bowl of food. I laid back down and was suddenly....not tired. Meanwhile, the kitten had eaten and begun to attack my head. And my arm. Clearly she had a death wish. Figuring that I may as well get up and do something, I did just that.

I cleaned up the kitchen and tried to work on last minute lesson plans. By 6 I was sleepy again, so I went back to bed. And the baby woke up 30 minutes later and so began my day. A pot of coffee later, we were starting school.

That went something like:

Me-talk, talk, instruct

Grace-giggle, giggle, spacey stare

Me-GRACE!

Boys-bang! Bang! Ahhhh! Vroooom! Errrr! Crash!

Grace-giggle, giggle, spacey stare

Baby-WAAAAHHHH!

Me-AHHHHHH!

We made it though. We finally wrapped up at 4:30 and I knew that we could never do another day like again.

But I have a feeling that it wasn't the first and won't be the last day like that. Just the other day, one of my young friends posted on her Facebook status that she couldn't sleep any more. I replied..."me either. I've got one boy playing the piano and singing, one boy running with the dog so she'll bark, a baby crying for food and a girl telling everyone what to do..." That was at 7:22 in the morning. And some things occurred to me that morning. It's a good thing my kids are cute. And David really needs singing lessons.