Love One Another

I am a member of a local homeschooling group.  Last winter, the director of the group asked if I would be willing to join her in helping to set up board, something that I was glad to do after realizing the possible legal issues involved with activities in the group.  I wanted to see an organization that strongly supported home educators in our area.  I wanted to be able to offer more opportunities and be welcoming and encouraging to people new to homeschooling.  I wanted my kids to have the opportunity to meet other kids who were home educated.  I know that I am unashamed to be a Christian, and I knew that if anyone wanted to judge me based on that than they would.

Recently, there was some controversy that arose over a statement that I support.  I do not believe that God has called me to be hateful to people who are a different race, family background, sexual orientation or religion from me.  I believed that we were commanded to love our neighbors as ourselves, and to love one another  (Leviticus 19:18, Matthew 22:49, Mark 12: 29-33, Luke 10:25-37, Romans 13:3-10).  The statement that I support is a basic non-discrimination policy that is found in family oriented organizations such as 4-H.  I support this statement because I cannot justify breaking Jesus' second greatest command (The greatest command being to love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind, Matthew 22:37).  I honestly feel that I am directly following Jesus by supporting this statement. 

Because of the controversy involved with my supporting a nondiscrimination policy within our homeschool group, I have come under fire.  Publicly and privately, my faith has been questioned.  My intentions for the group have been questioned.

...there's been more but its not worth going into further.  

To add to all of this, the very thing that I support, the following God's greatest commandments, now excludes my children from participating in a popular Christian curriculum and activity here in the Magic Valley.

Granted, I know that people are first and foremost judging me on my appearance.  I know that pink or purple hair and a nose piercing (by the way, Isaac's first gift to Rebekah was a nose ring), make me a likely target for adults who like to judge others.  I am rather surprised by people who have spent time with me and my kids questioning my faith in God though.  I am surprised that people feel that my kids are now a threat to theirs.  I am hurt by people who I thought of as friends now turned against me.  I'm hurt by people choosing to exclude children who would like to participate in a program that advertises the exact values that we are instilling in our children.  

It hurts to watch my children be punished because I stand for my beliefs.  It hurts that friends, who claim to follow the same basic system of beliefs that my family does, are the ones punishing my children.  Yet, I cannot back down.  I cannot choose to break this command.

Awkward Homeschoolers as Neighbors

A few years back, when my children were wee bitty babes, I belonged to an online community that was designed to support people who chose to follow a number of attachment parenting principles.  It was a huge help to me since I generally found myself alone in this struggle to bring 3 children born 4 1/2 years apart up with minimal damage.  In the many topics we discussed, sometimes parents with older children would post about their neighborhoods.  Of the things that struck me were the posts about the homeschooled neighbor kids, lacking social awareness, knocking on the door many times an evening while kids were finishing homework.  Oh those homeschoolers!  So awkward to not realize that the other neighborhood children were busy with real homework and real issues!  So annoying to constantly be on the doorstep banging on the door, interrupting the afternoon!  It just proved how homeschooling was bad for children who would never learn the appropriate way to ask friends to play; how out of touch homeschoolers were.

I bring this up because we have neighbors.  Neighbors who don't understand that homeschool kids may do schoolwork in the afternoons, and the evenings.  Neighbor kids who knock, then knock again, then knock again, then knock again, then... yes, you guessed it, knock a fifth time in one afternoon, when the kids are trying to finish a particularly time consuming history project.  Neighbor kids who don't quite understand that you cannot tell your mother you've finished your homework even when you haven't.  Neighbor kids who try to encourage you to lie to your mom, who is sitting right behind you, as you stand in the doorway.  You can't really lie, and hope your mom doesn't catch you until its too late when your mom is your teacher.  In homeschooling, it doesn't work that way.  The hour of accountability is much closer when you homeschool.

So yet another homeschooling folktale is disproved for me:  homeschooling children are awkward weirdos who have no grasp on any situation outside of their own, while school children are savvy and quick to pick up on social cues.  Now if we can only get that myth stricken from the books.

Progress Reports

Yesterday, I went through the children's seatwork subjects to see where we are.  Seatwork, or tablework as I might call it, are the subjects which require the kids to sit down and work out problems.  The subjects of Math, English Grammar, Spelling, Penmanship, Latin, Science all count as tablework or seatwork.  I was disappointed with the lack of progress we've made over the past year, but I know its my fault since I don't hover over the kids to make sure they are making progress in these subjects.


We are finally getting into summer the way we've wanted to.  A sad thought since its already mid-July.  We have full days of schoolwork, days at the library, days when we go out for errands and the mid-summer dance refresher.  It makes me wonder how we lost this simplicity.  It makes me wonder how we can hold onto this simplicity and not lose it again when the leaves start falling in a couple of months.

Simplify.

I realize I haven't posted an entry in quite a long time.  Life has been a blur of demands this spring and I realize that I've been sucking at everything.  The kids accuse me of looking at the computer too much (which I am guilty of), nothing has been getting done in a timely manner, and it seems that while everyone else in the world can handle minor stresses and duties with great grace, I cannot.  

It seems that I've failed at everything.  There is so much that I've missed as I've been wrapped up in a variety of busy work.  Busy work, its what I avoid ladening my children with and yet, I'm buried under it.  It feels awful.  In fact, it seems as though there is so many little projects that I'm missing the big one.  I look at my kids and realize that I've missed this spring with them too.  They have changed and grown and somehow, even though we spend nearly every minute together, I've missed this.  I find myself tired, cranky, and out of sorts.  We yell.  We fuss and fight.  This isn't who we want to be.

So change is in order:  less computer, less iphone, less distraction--more reading, more listening, more schoolwork.  

Its funny, I realized today that the kids and I had more fun picking strawberries today than we've had in a while.  We've made jam, and done schoolwork, and enjoyed each other's company more today than we have in months.  Perhaps, its time to hearken back to Thoreau and Simplify. Simplify. Simplify.  Maybe watching some ants and enjoying the fish is exactly what this family needs.

  

Zombie Frogs

From: Bethany Kalmbach
Sent: Wednesday, February 08, 2012 11:45 AM
To: Home Science Tools
Subject: frog hatchery kit

Hi!

Thank you for offering the Frog Hatchery Kit.  My only concern is that we received 13 grass frog embryos and 12 of them have matured to the tadpole stage and are growing robustly every day.  The sheet says that if there are more than 3 that mature we should separate them.  I'm put off by the cost of now having to acquire and maintain 3 more habitat tanks.  Were our embryos incredibly awesome, or are they scary mutants to have this many survive?  Were we supposed to receive so many embryos?  Did I receive a shipment of zombie frogs?  What should we do with our 12 zombie frogs?  Does the death rate increase by any chance?  

Help?

Bethany 

Hello Bethany,

Thank you for your inquiry & thank you for the good laugh.  Lol  

Our supplier does ship extra frog embryos because the survival rate is typically fairly low.  It appears that you were a rarity who was blessed with some awesome mutant frogs.  We do NOT recommend that you release these frogs into the wild, as releasing any animal that is not native to your local environment has the potential of destroying the ecological balance. 

We do however, have a few suggestions.

1.       Donate them to a local school.  Many teachers & classrooms would love to have a class pet to raise and study.

2.       Give them to a friend or family member who would like to keep them as a pet.

3.       Contact a local pet shop to see if they would like them or if they know of another option. 

4.       You may also be able to post a notice on your local Freecycle or Craig’s List to find people who may be interested in raising zombie frogs.

I hope this is of some assistance to you.  We wish you well with your awesome, mutant, zombie frogs & hope that you can find a good home for them.    

We are delighted to answer any other questions you have and look forward to serving you again in the future.

Kind regards, 

Terri Lawrence | Customer Service | Home Science Tools

www.homesciencetools.com | Sale

800-860-6272

Sweatpants

First, wow, I didn't think that I'd been so busy as to neglect my blog for so long, but I apparently have been.  I've found that the sound of typing always beckons to my husband and children that I'm not doing anything that is worthwhile in serving them, therefore they must interrupt me. My typing has the exact same effect on my family as the phone ringing.  Typing, or the sound of me conversing with someone else, causes panic in the family and they all must act like hyenas, with trust issues, on stimulants.

Anyway, the title of this was sweatpants, and was not intended to be about my kids and how they like to interrupt everything I do that isn't focused on them.  Which is really kind of humorous when you think about it, they hate when I truly focus on what they are doing and they tend to spend a lot of time trying to hide from me in our 1200 square foot house.  Like that's going to happen.  I can find you in 5 steps, even when you are curled up in a corner between the sofa and the bookcase, trying to read a comic book.

The problem with sweatpants is that the kids don't take me seriously when I wear them.  I tend to schedule Thursday as our stay-at-home-day and try to keep it family oriented.  That, by the way, is something that people forget to tell you when you set out to homeschool, that you need to schedule days to be home.  Dang socialization.  I love Thursdays, and I love that it means that we are probably not going anywhere.  So I tend to break out my 1 pair of sweatpants and my stained long sleeve purple shirt and consider myself comfy and ready to work.  Except, that I've found that even though I get ready for the day the same as I usually do, the sweatpants throw the kids off.  Its like their little brains can't wrap around me being comfortable and capable at the same time.  The thought that I might be able to make their lives miserable with Math drills and English review all while being comfortable and a little bit disheveled (ok, more disheveled than every other day of the week, I'm not a paragon of appearing put-together on a regular day) boggles their minds, so they react by ignoring everything I say until I yell at them.

This brings me to a sad point.  Do I give up my comfortable sweats on Thursdays in order to maintain order?  Or do I accept that Thursdays are just not going to be as productive as I want them to be?