Monthly Archives: July 2006

In a funk

Posted on by
9

I’m feeling deflated as a writer and blogger today. Good ol’ fashioned pity party. Nothing is meeting my expectations and it’s so darn frustrating. I feel like I’ve come late to the party, all the cool kids are hanging out together and I’m stuck in a corner of the room wondering how not to look like a loser.

Plus, the boys keep fighting, I got teenager attitude from the girl, who isn’t even a teen yet, and the toddler keeps picking out of the garbage can. This is not why I gave birth, ya know. Right now the two eldest are fighting, and Doc just walked in from work, but do they call for him? Nope. I didn’t give birth to be a referee either.

With all that said, I’m thinking of turning off the comments here, that way there is nothing for me to miss. If I’m feeling really daring I’ll pitch the sitemeter, too. I’m sorry for the rant and I hope I’m not sounding like a big baby. I just need to type it all out, think it through, go to Cold Stone Creamery after the kids are strapped tucked in their beds and wallow in yummy-ness. Is that a word? Yummy-ness.

Yes, folks, she needs ice cream.

She’s a reader! For the homeschooling mom with young ones

Posted on by
1

This post was originally published August 23, 2005

I had one of those “homeschooling is working” moments while on the Cape last week. Susan, my seven-year-old and eldest child, came into the kitchen of our rental house looking for something, pacing back and forth, a look of frustration on her face. My husband and I asked her what she was doing.

“I need to read words, Mommy!” she announced, talking with her hands for emphasis. You can see a new grown-up tooth peeking though where a baby tooth had not too long ago fallen out.

This is the child who cried when I asked her to sit and read a few pages to me from a Christian Liberty Nature Reader. Getting her to read anything other than a My Little Pony book is quite the chore, so for Susan to be searching for something to read was wonderful to hear. And it wasn’t mommy-imposed reading.

This is one of the reasons why we homeschool, isn’t it? To be there when our children discover the magic of losing themselves in the pages of a book. Watching her triumph over the difficult math problems. Taking an interest in what turns into a life-long love affair with anything be it science, history or the arts.

Susan’s proclamation of her need for words is going to fuel me to keep going this upcoming school year. I need to remember it when I don’t feel like teaching a tough subject or when the children campaign for a school-free day when we need to get the academics done.

My girl is a reader. Not just a reluctant reader plodding through a page, but a lover of words, lost in the story. A compulsive reader. Knowing I had a hand in making that happen is a wonderful gift.