**
In the morning, my unsuccessful efforts at sighing and eye-rolling the interruptions away leads to a break in the school day and she takes her littlest brother upstairs to a mound of blocks.
With her mouth full of sugar-soaked bits of encouragement and her heart full of patience, a surly toddler is understood and listened to in the most perfect way for the first time since he woke up.
**
In the afternoon, she returns to me her completed hand-writing assignment entitled "How to behave appropriately during a morning outing," and she knows that it will never be seen again and that effort, combined with the intention of trying harder tomorrow, will be enough to let it go.
**
At dinner, she passes him her pepperoni slices and he passes me his crusts, and a healthy dose of ranch dressing covers a day's worth of under-eaten-vegetable transgressions.
**
At bedtime, the stories are finished. He hugs her and she hugs him back. They each welcome a sloppy kiss from a baby brother, and then go to their separate beds.
I kiss them each on their cheeks, foreheads, necks and cheeks again, because even the knowledge of inevitable post-midnight needs for water and extra snuggles won't keep me from missing them until morning.
Home schooling is tough at first. The children seem to want to know if the schooling part is really necessary and try to make you understand their viewpoints. Good in that they are allowed the freedom to form a strong personality, bad in that they will try your patience often. I never had the luxury to stay home with my daughters, but loved to share with a friend and his wife who home schooled and had these trials. They also had some wonderful opportunities to travel and spent 2 month stints in the UP of Michigan in the winter and the desert in CA in the summer. I hope that some of those fun learning opportunities happen for you, but without the temperature extremes. They were active in the home school community where he tutored advanced mathematics and Physics for the whole area for about 8 years and she as a certified teacher gave all the standardized tests required by the state of Florida.
ReplyDeleteIt is indeed a blessing that you have such a good sized circle in which to daily share the love of understanding. Bella and I have to work hard at this! And please, update on the under-the-skin scourge.
ReplyDeleteYou all pick up each other's slack -- I can't imagine a better scenario! And I know what you mean about missing them until morning...when we'll all have a BUNCH of new chances at understanding :)
ReplyDeleteGosh. .
ReplyDeleteI put mine to bed with loads of kisses, pass out from exhaustion, and then wonder what hits me at 5 am, when we start over again.
Not one single moment of "missing."
How is that?
D