Did somebody say "field trips" ?

I am quickly finding out that the whole "but they won't be socialized" argument just does not hold water. Let me start off by saying that when I mention to anyone that we have chosen to homeschool, I can honestly tell you that about 80 percent of the people give me that argument. It comes in various phrases, but always includes the words "wonder" "getting" "social". My comeback is usually something like this, "Yea, last year my daughter spent 6 hours a day in one room with a bunch of kids exactly her same age, and she was only allowed to talk/socialize during lunch and recess. Don't know how I'm going to top that one"

Do people not know how ridiculous it sounds when they bring the whole socialization thing up? I would hope that one day when my daughter is in the work force, she does not sit in a 20 x 20 room with 25 people exactly her same age , and a boss looking over her shoulder to make sure she is only having conversations at lunch. And really....lets be honest here. Is it every parent's dream to have the public school system "socialize" our kids? I think not.

So last week, we went to the Krispy Kreme donut factory. This wasn't the donut shop down the street--it was an actual factory! The kids thought the process was cool, but of course thought the coolest part was getting to take home a bag of donuts as a souvenir! Here's a couple of pix of Greyson and Sophie at the end of the conveyor!

Here is a little video we took. Not much, but there was a fine layer of donut glaze covering the factory floor so I was trying to stay steady and keep an eye on the kiddos too. :-)

We missed the field trip to Wannado City today, but will be on the road bright and early tomorrow headed to St. Augustine to see a couple of historical Spanish forts as well as other interesting places in the nation's oldest city. They are supposed to do a weapons demonstration tomorrow afternoon at one of the forts, I know Greyson will love that.

Looking at our calendar so far, we will be taking more field trips this year than most kids do in 12 years of regular schooling. That being said, I highly doubt that they will be hermit crabs by the time May rolls around. I guess we'll see. :-)

Time flies when you're up to your eyeballs

I knew I should have updated sooner. So much has happened, and , as usual, I have forgotten most of it. We have been having a blast schooling at home. I must say it is hard to stay on track throughout the day. The other day, all we had time for was Bible (which is totally cool) because we talked so much about the lesson. I just realized last week that I am learning SO MUCH about the Bible that I never knew. Of course, I was pretty uneducated about it compared to alot of people, but something about having it broken down for me in 2nd grade terminology really gets me interested! For instance, did you know that in the VERY FIRST chapter of the bible it says NINE TIMES that each creature would produce "according to it's own kind"? You know, a dog would not give birth to a squirrel and a horse would not give birth to a kangaroo. So of course that means a monkey would not have given birth to a human, right? How's that for an argument against evolution? Must have been pretty important for God to specifically say it 9 times in the very first page of the Bible!!

So the kids are out fishing with PJ this morning. Sophie was crying last night because she thought I might be lonely here at home without them. I assured her that I would be just fine. At that point her and I came to the conclusion that Mom had not been home alone since the middle of May. That's 4 months people. Don't get me wrong--I really do enjoy being with my kids. I even encourage them to go run errands with me on Saturdays when they could very easily stay home with Dad. I know alot of Mom's look for every opportunity to get away from their kids to save their sanity. I know there will be a day when I ask them to run errands with me on Saturday, and they will say "No thanks, Mom." So I try to soak up as much as I can with them. But let me tell you, these past 4 hours of complete quiet has allowed me to get alot of things done. But I am looking forward to their fish stories when they come home. I suppose I could take these last couple of hours to run to the grocery store alone and stock up for the week. But I think I'll wait for my mini-van clan to get home so they can ride along.

What day is it again?

OK. I had the best of intentions to start this blog three weeks ago. I also had a lot of other plans. But it seems as though I might have bitten off more than I can chew.

I had plans of ordering the perfect curriculum, and integrating it into the perfect schedule. We were going to start homeschooling precisely on August 6th, 2007 at 8:30am. I had our subjects mapped out down to the minute. I even had scheduled breaks for "lunch" and "snack".
To make a long story short, we are still on last weeks' schoolwork, and I've all but thrown the schedule out the window.

We have chosen to home school for a variety of reasons. But I know I did not choose to home school my children so that I would be a raging lunatic, rushing my kids into blocks of time and staying up until the wee hours of the morning trying to pretend I'm an organized person. The truth is, I've never been too terribly organized and I don't see myself ever being a neat freak. And I think because of that, I am able to see past the black and white of things.

Don't get me wrong, I know we need some sense of order around here to make this home school thing successful. But I know that no amount of perfect order can replace the happy Mom my kids want and need me to be. I've got one chance at this child-raising thing, and I really want to give it my best. And sometimes, that means looking past the pile of dishes in the sink and the overflowing folder of schoolwork to be corrected.

Last week, we went to the library, we visited another church while Sophie attended a Florida History class, we made new friends at a book club, relaxed like normal people at a "mom and pop" coffee shop, and selected a pound of mashed potatoes and a quarter pound of chilled shrimp as an Ala carte dinner meal from the local market. And I can't forget the field trip to Tyler's high school to post bail on his cell phone which was taken away from him by the "dean" on the 2nd day of school. None of these things were scheduled, yet they seemed to fit in perfectly fine with our lesson plan for the day. Whatever it may have been.

Someday I know my kids won't remember page 36 in English as much as they remember playing domino's with me on an old coffee shop table. I know that Math Lesson 21 will pale in comparison to admiring all of the statuesque high school trophies that lined the dean's office wall. And who wants to worry about writing the letter "H", when you can use all of the words you have ever learned in your little short 5 year old life to laugh and catch up with a buddy in the hallway at church on a Thursday afternoon?

We will do just fine this year. I promise all of our work will be done, and our records in order. Our little greenhouse will nurture and protect Tyler, Sophie and Greyson for as long as it needs to. I just want to be sure we always keep things in perspective and not take ourselves too seriously. I think we're doing pretty well so far.