A Fly On My Homeschool Wall

Last week's crisis was such that I am back on anti-depression meds.  Usually I only need them for post-partum depression, but my body chemistry is not okay without them right now. I feel embarrassed. I'm not sure why. But I do. So I keep repeating to myself what my mom says to me. "Thank goodness for good medication!" And I am moving very, very slowly through my days. Photo credit:  Pixie  The homeschool camp out was last weekend.  I did not stay overnight.  Instead I stayed home with the 6 youngest, while Sir Walter Scott (more of a knight in shining armor than ever) took the older 6 camping.  The next morning he came home to pick the rest of us up to spend the day at the campsite. That was enough. It was joyful and satisfying as it was. I've abandoned our afternoon school plans . . . for now. We are getting plenty done with our Morning Meeting, Symposium, individual school time, and dance.   We covered several history lessons, a geogr

This was a bad week. Some good things happened. Like having a picnic dinner on the deck one night But it was a bad week. I don't know how to write both honestly and appropriately about what happened, so that will have to suffice for now. The little kids played in the mud every day.  That was good for them.  They made up long, highly-imaginative stories that helped them develop their brains.  They worked the mud with their hands, and they hauled and carried buckets of mud and water with their whole bodies. I call that good preschool. Mister Man finished reading Little House in the Big Woods --all by himself.  I'm reading it aloud to him and Ladybug, but he got interested and picked the book up one day during quiet hour.  For a week I hardly saw it out of his hands.  He read and narrated the chapters to me day in and day out until he'd suddenly read the whole thing. Now he's reading Farmer Boy. Ladybug's school got interrupted by the t

Monday was a holiday for most students, but my husband so often works holidays (he's a critical care nurse), and we take so many partial days off here and there, that unless we've been able to make special plans, we just school away. I tried 3 different ways to make special plans, but they all fell through, so we had about 3/4 of a school day. And then I went grocery shopping. For my sake, I'd prefer to combine Morning Meeting and symposium into one session and then break for independent studies.  We have to do that on Wednesdays after breakfast at the park.  But for the babies'/littles' sake it's better to have our brief Morning Meeting, break for play time/independent studies, then come back together for a snack and symposium. Our preschool book of the week was Just Me by Marie Hall Ets. We're still working on memorizing the first paragraph of The Living Christ .  I think we just about have it, but the song is so very lovely that I don't m

The feeling I wake up with each morning is panic--panic that our schedule won't work; panic that our days will fall apart; panic that I simply cannot do it. Then I get going. I just put one foot in front of the other each minute that passes. And it's okay. It's not fabulous (as I write Brother is staging a screaming tantrum on our deck--there's nothing I can do but wait it out). But it is okay. I did leave enough breathing room in our schedule. Our days do fall apart, but we put them back together . . . or they end.  Either way. I know I cannot do my work alone.  It takes family teamwork and my Heavenly Father's constant guidance and support (I wonder how many guardian angels hang out around our house).  Mostly I fail.  But I keep trying. And then I wake up to panic again. I'm hoping, sincerely, that the panic will fade as the weeks pass. Panic notwithstanding, we started school in full this week. Monday This wasn't really a full day