letting down my guard/getting real honest

Hello!

Kinda weird for me, I have been too shy to write anything. I feel like I must make some grand proclamation, which IS my forte, and I do not have one. I am feeling a little reticent at my grandiose plans, and have been stopping to ground myself , mostly in the ofrm of looking into all the little blue and golden and green eyes of all four of the babies and really really REALLY trying to figure out what is really best for THEM.

not for me to look like Homeschool Cooly of the Year

not for me to have The Cleanest House

not for me to Impress bloggers

but for my children.

Sigh sigh and triple sigh. How I have stressed and strained over the YEARS to come out with my stance on unschooling versus all the other kinds of homeschooling, and how I have always held back, in fear of offending people, in fear of my insecurities and confusions and shortcomings showing. In fear (and sometimes shame!)of my own ever rapidly shifting and changing ideas, ideals, moods, oh, it is hard to be a woman anyhow, and even harder to be extremely influenced by what I read, and even harder still to be affected by the weather and the diet and the outside world--how do people possibly just pick a life-stance and stay with it?

Ok. Deep breath. What am I blathering about?

I am blathering about this:

I am a little worried that, in my bloggy fantasy world, I have gotten SO , SO flipped out about how our life is going to be so different on September 4th, that I have gotten myself into a tizzy. As though this were an actual school, and my actual boss was going to actually come and inspect us or something. As if strange pupils were going to blast down my door, and I had an audience of 30 parents judging my school and counting on me and my fabulous schedules and charts to "come through for them"

PHEW!

How do School Teachers actually handle that stress??? Yuck.

John Holt says not to bring the school into your home, not to emulate the public school model in your home, and points out superbly why that is such a foolish idea. I can read and read his stuff all night and day, nodding my head vigorously along, yes, yes, kids don't want worksheets, they want to folow meaningful persuits....yes, yes, sitting in a desk all day is bullcrap, yes, yes, parcelling out little tidbits of unrelated trivia each day for regurgitation in the form of disposable short-term memory a.k.a. quizzes and tests is totally antithetical to human knowledge....yes yes to all those groovy quotes by Albert Einstein about creativity being way more important than the right answer to the problem....yes yes yes!

B U T

I just don't know what to really do about any of it.

I do not want to "burn out" by Friday of the first week, and I am worried that all these high hopes and lofty sounding plans will leave me cross and snappish and us all being play-actors in this completely arbitrary schedule that I have made up for us!

Ok, so why do we homeschool? Us, our family. Was it out of a deep feeling that the schools don't serve the needs of the children? Or was it wanting to not immerse our kids in a culture that we have big problems with, ethically? Was it actionary, reactionary, what is it all about? Letting them persue their own persuits? Do I? Do we? What does that mean?

(I know this blog post is really, really meandering, but it is helping, so bear with me)

We, meaning Steve and I, have come to the conclusion that there are some things that we feel that the children should know. Be accquainted with, comfortable with, etc. We wanted to provide a nice day for our kids, provide them with some food for thought, and leave lots of good open time slots to get excited and "into" anything that came along, whether it was something that I presented one day during schooltime, or something they found out about in a magazine, or on TV, or from a friend, a book, online, what have you.

We never wanted to overbook our kids with a gazillion "activities", because we have seen those families and it all seemed so yucky and unnatural, expensive, and uncool to eat all your meals in the car and be always screaming TIME FOR GYMNASTICS! TIME FOR SOCCER! TIME FOR BALLET! It wasn't for us. That being said, we have dabbled in some classes here and there; Casey played soccer 2 seasons, Greta took a little dance class, Mickey did an indoor soccer thing, we tried Drama and tumbling and it was all--- mediocre and disruptive?... But thats ok. Girl Scouts has been a big hit, and so has Campfire USA. So we stick with it.

I have four kids who are at very different stages developmentally right now. Some need naps, some wont take them. Some need more sleep, less sleep, more alone time, less alone time, supervision, trust, help , dont help....

So what we have gotten VERY committed to is a Rhythm. We must have a rhythm to our days. That is the forefront for us this year, and when my homeschooling mom friends (ooh I love typing that!!!) have been asking me what we have planned for this upcoming school year, I have said this over and over. that we just want a rhythm and a flow. Meaning, peace, stability. I know and I know and I know that children really do thrive when they have consistency.

We have more interesting books and craft supplies and websites than you could shake a stick at. But what good does it do when kids are all festering out in crusty pajamas, the house is a wreck, everything we own is "lost", theres nothing to eat, and who can cook in that nasty kitchen anyhow, some crappy low quality show is blaring out of the television, along with the insideous commercials and despicable commercials, dirty and cross Mommy's on her computer with 3 old coffee cups surrounding her, Daddy is crabby, and even the cat doesn't know which way is up, you know?

That is what happens around here in less than 48 hours (I swear on my life) when we get off track. It is scary, sure, and I have touched upon that whole thing before, but it is what it is. So I have really focused this summer, as promised, on getting the HOME vibe to a better place, which I had realyl hoped, would open up the channels to begin to enjoy and revel in the educational products and opportunities that already surround us!

The only thing is, in the last week, I have gotten a little stressy about everything being perfect and that isnt cool either.

So.

Its looking like the issues of bedtimes and mealtimes and who naps/who doesnt is all getting settled into place. We have our dining room converted into a lovely schoolroom, and have been getting used to eating in a decidedly not eat-in-kitchen just to have the luxury of a cheese-free schoolroom!

We do all our dishes everynight.

I make menus and we have food and meals that are healthy and sound.

I have written out 3 weeks worth of plans for schooltime that I genuinely feel the kids will enjoy and get something out of.

I cleaned our (55 year old, 8 piece, filthy) windows inside and out with vinegar today and stocked up on birdseed so we could observe and enjoy the sweet little birds from our table at their feeder. (It is NOT homeschool without birds at the feeder, that is one thing I will never waiver on! Coffee, too. )

We hung our pocket calendar, our white board, our bulletin board and our posters and map up.

We moved the bunnies and the big frog into the schoolroom, and put in the cassette player.

I still need to move more children's books from the backroom into the schoolroom, and get some of the adult titles out and into our closet (!)

Oh-anotherthing--when I say schoolroom, I thgink it might be a turn off to life-learning/unschooling types. I know that it sounds like I am going to force my kids to sit in a desk, or that I am making some terrible error in implying that "learning" only takes place under my tutiledge, from such and such o'clock to such and such o'clock, Monday to Friday. I hope you knwo that I do NOT think that at all. But again, logistically, we have over the years toyed with MANY, MANY combinations and set-ups when it comes to storage space, workspace, etc, and this is the one that is the most realistic for us.

To have our books and really, most of our products all in one room has been really nice. Of course you can take the book to your bedroom or your fort or your swingset. Of course you can draw in another room, of course we go places and do things outside of our dining room, but with a toddler or two, and no maid, this is the most sane solution for us. To have a Schoolroom, and to call it that.

So.

We start Tuesday, but I am NOT going to get crabby, hyper, or pushy. I know full well that life with 4 kids can be unpredictable, messy, and that the linear plans always end up very curvy. Its ok Its ok Its ok.

Being a wanna-be control freak is probably harder than being an actual one. I am NOT a Type A. I am NOT a big cleaning lady. I am NOT good at organization, and this is a struggle for me. Sometimes I think we should all just COMPLETELY go unhinged, and all sleep together on the floor, live in a teepee, eat from one big bowl with our hands, heck, maybe even be nudists. Sell necklaces on the beach. Live and love all tribal-like.

But do you know what?

I don't think that would be best for my children. As fun as "unhindered living" or what ever you would want to call it sounds, and as much as it might might work with one young baby, for us, stepping up to this world of "running a nice home" feels right, despite how hard it can be.

We have four kids, and love it. We love having a "big" family, but it takes a different approach than anything else we have really known before, anything exampled in our own childhoods, or most of the advice books and websites out there. If you don't have a bucnh of kids who are home all day, you just DO NOT GET IT, cannot get it, and it is sort of a treat to get in contact with others who do live the way we do.

So, its about school and learning and it isnt.

This year, of course we will learn stuff. Of course I have plenty of things I aim to present and surely hope to "teach". But the number one thing I hope we can embrace this year is a sense of peace and happiness and LOVE.

love

love

love

love

I want to love my babies more than any schedule. I want them to feel whole and sound and safe and that their mom is lovely and loveable and approachable and available for them.

I am going to be going to bed early, and I HOPE Steve and I can make adjustments for me getting lots more breaks, because I am seriously increasing my "workload" exponentially.

Panic panic I dont wanna go to bed early! I dont wanna un-connect from Steve, from dumb TV shows, from blogging...wahahahahaha

Ok.

I will be fine.

I am excited. But I am not going to burn out or be a manic fool. This is all I wanted to say.