March 5, 2007 @ 5:02 pm | Filed under:
Bloggity Have you heard about the Ultimate Blog Party? It’s happening even as we speak. The host is 5 Minutes for Mom, and about a zillion bloggers are joining in the fun. Check out those links and you’ll see how to take part, including how to qualify for one of the many nifty prizes.
If you’re a fellow partier dropping in to see what kind of chips I’ve got in my snack bowl, welcome! We’re a pretty chipper bunch here at the Lilting House. We are mad for books and have been known to get giddy over a really great day planner. We like to spend our mornings travelling the world vicariously in the company of our pals Mr. Putty and Miss Mason, but not all our journeys are vicarious, oh no. We can muster up a Westward Ho! with the best of ’em when necessary.
One of the smallest among us brings adventure right into the house on a daily basis; and the smallest of all? She is scrumptiousness personified.
Despite all this adventure, we like to live life at a mellow pace, and there are only a handful of things we try to fit into a day.
We’re glad to have you here. Make yourself at home. We encourage lounging in pajamas and finding creative uses for dryer lint. And we always, always have chocolate.
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: If you’re interested in homeschooling but worry that it would be too time-consuming and you couldn’t juggle everything, don’t be. Worried, I mean. If you can handle the time commitments required of a good, involved school parent, you can handle the time commitment of home education. Don’t let worries about time be what deters you, if everything else about the concept is appealing.
This morning I had to get Wonderboy out the door by 7:20 for his half-hour speech therapy session at the elementary school down the road. As I hustled him out of his jammies and rushed him through breakfast, I silently thanked "the Johns"—that’s Mr. Holt
and Mr. Gatto—for the zillionth time for hepping me to the whole notion of a way of life that doesn’t require the frantic morning rush-out-the-door on a daily basis. I cherish our relaxed mornings: the pile-in-one-bed snuggle time, the lounging in pajamas with a book at the breakfast table, the impromptu piano recitals, the leisurely pace at which we move through our morning chores. Our Charlotte Mason lesson time begins around nine. Nine-ish. The schedule is fluid. It’s a luxury, and I am deeply grateful for it.
Of course speech therapy is going to muck that up a bit twice a week, but only for two of us. The advantage to having an early session is that we can squeeze it in before Scott leaves for work. The girls can stay home with Daddy, moving at their usual molasses relaxed pace.
Once, back in Virginia, a local newspaper reporter interviewed a bunch of us homeschooling moms at a park. She asked me why I had chosen to educate my children myself, and I gave what I hoped was a succinct but illuminating explanation of our belief that we can give them an outstanding education and a happy, wholesome childhood. Later I made a silly quip about how "also, it means we get to sleep in every day" (which wasn’t even true, since Wonderboy was about three months old at the time, and sleep=ha!), and wouldn’t you know that’s the quote that made it into the article. All my neighbors got to read about how the reason I homeschool my kids is so I can sleep late. And actually I think that notion made homeschooling look attractive to some of them for the first time, so go figure.
Being a good school parent takes a lot of time. Packing lunches, getting the kids to school or to the bus stop, checking backpacks, signing off on reading logs, volunteering in the classroom and at fundraisers, going to conferences, making costumes, helping with homework, running out for supplies for that project that’s due tomorrow—I know the list goes on. I have lots of friends whose kids are in school, and I am mightily impressed with how they juggle the many tasks required of them. And I’m super-thankful I don’t have to juggle that load myself. Honestly, I don’t know they do it!
