We've been studying World War II and the Holocaust this fall. We've read and discussed and read some more and made timelines and read yet more and... and that's about it. History is just history this year, which is odd for us. I used to try to integrate various other subjects into whatever we're studying in history, but I'm not doing that so much this year. Why is not the point. The point is that sometimes it happens anyway, in ways I least expect it.

Spaz takes classes on Fridays, and some of them, including his science class, involve homework. That is a good thing. (It is also one of the reasons I am not making great efforts to tie multiple subjects together.) His class is studying physics, and one of his assignments last week was to go to a website where he could "build" a roller coaster and adjust various factors such as speed, friction, and angle until his car was able to run the entire track without coming to a stop or falling off.

But of course, it is ever so much more fun to make the car fall off.

Spaz dutifully adjusted everything in such a way as to let the car complete its run, thereby fulfilling the assignment. That took perhaps four minutes. He then spent the next twenty minutes playing with the controls and adjusting all the factors to provide for maximum spills and thrills. Especially spills.

"I am the evil roller coaster engineer!" he'd cry gleefully as the car plummeted off the track for the umpteenth time and hurtled off the screen. "I like to send people to their deaths! Ahahahahaha!" I know this sounds six-year-oldish, and indeed it is. Spaz is a perpetual child-at-heart, at the moment fourteen-going-on-seven, but someday forty-going-on-nine.

And so it was that the animated roller coaster car continued to plummet off the track and the boy continued to exult in his evilness and the girl continued to look on with interest and the mom continued to say, "We need to turn the computer off now and move on to other things," and the boy continued to say, "Just one more time, pleeeeaaaase?"

If Spaz is fourteen-going-on-seven, Fuzz is eleven-going-on... well, twelve I suppose, or sixteen in some ways, and sometimes thirty or even sixty. But her mind works in mysterious ways. She comes up with the most interesting questions and observations.

And so when Spaz announced for about the fourth time that he had built "the roller coaster of death!"

Does this post seem unfinished? It is. I fell asleep. I do that sometimes. It is not a good idea to hit buttons on the computer when one is falling asleep, or one might hit "publish" instead of "draft". See above post on why I'm not actually going to finish this one.

*Sigh* I don't know how on earth Mr. Bright But Unfocused And Very High Maintenance will ever survive real high school next year. And I don't know how I would ever survive an attempt to homeschool him through high school.

I guess we'll have to shoot him. It's a shame, because he's such a great kid.

That's going to end up being a facebook status update one of these days, but you read it here first. Maybe someday I'll even elaborate on it and turn my frustrations into a real blog post. For now, you just get this. Because my brain is too tired to elaborate, and besides, I am supposed to be doing school stuff right now.

Like trying to figure out a workable structure for our schooldays so that the highly motivated 11-year-old isn't getting shortchanged by the high-maintenance 14-year-old. Like trying to figure out how to help the highly unfocused 14-year-old manage his time and buckle down to work. Like trying to ensure that said  14-year-old gets in the "meaty" learning and skill-building he needs when in fact it is a challenge just to manage what seems like a bare minimum.

And when I'm finished figuring all that out, I'm going to go to Washington and solve the economic crisis.

You laugh. I cry.

Of course I wouldn't shoot my son. Despite the challenges involved in homeschooling him, he's a wonderful kid. No, much as I'd like to some days, I won't shoot him...

...but I might blow my brains out.

That would just solve everything very nicely. For me.

But no, I can't do that either. The stain would never come out of the carpet.

I am a crazy woman. Why else would I do this? What else could I be? I homeschool an attentionally-deficient adolescent because I am crazy, and I am crazy because I homeschool an attentionally-deficient adolescent.

That is about the long and short of it.

And now I must return to my futile endeavors. Thank you for reading. I shall return when I can next muster up the spare brain cells.

And here is the real motivation for my return yesterday (er, early this morning) to blogging: a guest post over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

(If you don't immediately love that blog just for its title, you'll love it for its content. Besides, Kris homeschools way too much like I do.)

Me, a guest post! So yes, I suppose I have now "arrived" as a blogger. And by the way, if you've been reading my blog for a while, the post over at W.U.H. will probably sound familiar to you. That's because it's a rewrite of something I posted here last September.

I should clarify that this is not the reason I returned to blogging. You, dear readers, are the reason I returned to blogging. Well, and my love for writing, and the fact that I like blogging and I like my blog, and...  The guest post was simply my motivation for returning when I did. It was a good deadline. I wouldn't want people jumping over here from there and finding a blog hanging in limbo-land with its most recent post 3 weeks old already.

Oh, and if you are one of the people who clicked over from my guest post, Hi! I mean, welcome! (That sounds more professional and all.) But I hope you aren't thinking that you are going to find a veritable treasure trove of helpful homeschooling hints here, because you won't. My KWAD-schooling post on Kris' blog today is not my typical post. Even my homeschooling posts  are primarily anecdotal rather than informational. Makes for more entertaining reading. And after KWAD-schooling all day, I am all about writing for my own entertainment. Stress relief, you know. I'm not like Kris, who actually posts helpful stuff. Sorry. I do hope you'll find enough good stuff here to keep you coming back.

Back to my regulars-- While I am doing public service announcements and sending you to other people's blogs, I'll send you here as well. This is a brand new blog written by a real-life friend of mine. My blogging so inspired her that she finally took the plunge and started one of her own, as I have been encouraging her to do for some time! She's doing a good job, too, so go over and encourage her by reading her stuff! And let it not be said of me that I never inspired anyone.

(I think I have inspired my kids to do chores and schoolwork a few times as well, but that is generally accomplished via threats external motivations and therefore doesn't quite count.)

Happy reading. I'm off to try to get some school done.

Edited to add an important clarification

I do not often link to other blog posts, but I thought this one was well-worth sharing. It ranks easily among the best articles I have ever read on homeschooling, and I am not quick to hand out such statements. Among other things, I appreciate the fact that this post, while overwhelmingly positive & encouraging, is not afraid to acknowledge the downsides of homeschooling as well. Too often we as homeschoolers are reluctant to address that topic. It also includes a couple of links to other articles on that same topic that are well-worth reading. (And don't worry; the "downside" section constitutes only a very small portion of the post. :-)

Here's one of my favorite lines from the post: "A library card and a curious mother can offer a stellar education." (I hasten to add, however, that this article is NOT about educating with only a library card. I just like that line.) Now go read the rest, and perhaps the links as well; then explore the rest of the blog.  Whether you homeschool or not, it would be well-worth adding to your reading list, as the author is simply an amazing writer.

Okay, end of commercial. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming. (Although once you visit Ann's blog, I'm not certain you will ever feel a need to return to mine.)

(Edited Sat aft to add another pic at the end which I'd forgotten. Some of you will remember this pic from last summer, but it's worth posting again.)

Note: this is being finished and posted on Saturday, but I am leaving the date as Thursday, which is the day I started writing it.

Tuesday was an unseasonably warm, beautimagorgeous day, sunny and 72.

We did not take the entire day off school. We did the Big Boogers (writing and math), practiced piano, and did some Little Stuff. But we also did this:

That's a baking-soda-&-vinegar volcano, in case you hadn't figured it out. And no, it wasn't a random project; it was part of the ongoing "earth science" studies we've been doing since January. In retrospect, earth science was not the wisest choice for winter months, but at least our "volcano week" coincided with some warm weather.

(By the way, in leiu of the red food coloring that we were supposed to add and which was nowhere to be found in my house, I cleverly added a package of red koolaid powder that had been leftover from Fuzz' birthday party 6 months ago. That will for once and for all eliminate the scenario of the kids finding it and asking me to make it and me saying no. I'm not a big fan of having koolaid in the house, so this was a perfect use for it. Since I know some of you are wondering why I even kept the package around for six months, let's just say that I am a compulsive Keeper of Potentially Useful Stuff-- and see, it paid off. Of course, I added it to the mixture when the kids weren't looking and only fessed up after the deed had been done.)

After about the third eruption, we decided to move the whole operation closer to the house so we wouldn't have to go so far for refills. (We'd finally brought the baking soda & vinegar out with us, but kept running back in for more water.) The move to the backyard flower garden (no flowers yet, of course) also yielded some nice soft dirt with which to build up the sides of the volcano and I marveled that we'd not thought of that location before. Spaz also brought out some of his army guys and bridges to add to the fun.

Unfortunately, as many times as we did this, I was still unable to snap a picture at just the moment when the solution was spurting up into the air. Nor did our later eruptions have that lovely red tint, as we did not continue to add dye koolaid to our mixture.

Almost an entire bottle of vinegar later, we finally put this project to rest. However, that doesn't mean we went inside. With predictions of a 35-degree temperature drop over the next couple days, we wanted to enjoy this one while we could.

The kids were all too happy to go off in search of these:

Our afternoon also included this for the kids...

...and this for me, for the first time this year, hooray!

It also included a massive amount of poop-scooping by Spaz, but you really don't want to see pictures of that. And unfortunately, it also included putting up one of these:

The warmth apparently brought all the flies out of the woodwork or wherever it is they laid their eggs last year. We went from zero to 60,000 in one afternoon, it seems.

Wednesday was supposed to be rainy and thus a good opportunity to catch up on Tuesday's neglected schoolwork. However, it turned out to be a nice day as well, though not as warm as Tuesday. We did not spend the entire afternoon outside, but the kids did take some long outdoor breaks. Hooray; I have missed having those as part of our school day. (And for those of you who were wondering whether my kids changed clothes between volcano and driveway hockey, I'll confess that the hockey pics were taken on Wednesday, as I had not taken any on Tuesday. Artistic license and all that, you know.)

By Thursday, the predictions of a return to near-freezing temps did indeed materialize. It was deceptively sunny out, but when I went to hang out laundry, I just about froze my upper phalanges off. (I do not hang laundry standing on my head, so in this instance, "upper" phalanges would refer to fingers.) The laundry didn't get dry, either.

That is how spring is around here; it comes in bits and spurts and reverts frequently back to winter before it decides to stick around for a while. This is the time of year when windbreakers share space in the mudroom with snow gear, which can not yet be safely put away. So far, despite some cold temperatures, we have had no measurable snow for the month of March, which is unusual indeed; however, an April snowstorm would not be out of the question.

The warm weather was nice while it lasted. Perhaps we'll get more next week.

Post-script: As I was finishing this up on Saturday, Spaz alerted me to a deer-sighting in the woods behind the house. This is not terribly common, so I got up from the computer and watched with him as eleven- ELEVEN!!!- deer bounded out of the woods and across the neighbor's field. That is more deer than we have ever seen here at one time.

Like most people, we are on a two-week break from schoolwork.  The problem is, my kids keep acting as though "Christmas Break" means a break from chores and the like as well.  "What?  Chores?  You can't give us chores!  We're on Christmas BREAK, remember?"

Uh, no. After not-so-patiently explaining for the seventy-third-and-a-half time that Christmas break is just a break from schoolwork, I finally decided to capitulate-- sort of. "Fine," I said the other day. "Christmas break means a break from EVERYTHING. No chores, no anything.  BUT, it's over Monday." (Meaning we'd get back to schoolwork and normal routines TODAY instead of having another week off.)

They decided to stick with the original plan and I've heard no complaints about chores since.  Thank goodness, because I really did not want to get back to the schoolwork routine today, either.

However.  I turned my planner page to this week and saw that I had written down all sorts of things to get done this week while we are on "break".  I think I wrote this in November or maybe even October.  It's always easy to plan what I'm supposedly going to do a month or two down the road.  Apparently last week was my "break" and this week is school-organization week for me.  Over the next five days, I'm ostensibly going to:  clean and organize my desk in the schoolroom, take everything off the bookshelves & reorganize them, declutter the bar that is supposed to serve as a craft area, plan out all my history for the next couple months, make some decisions & more of a structure for language arts, plan some fun "electives" for the kids to choose from and figure out how to incorporate them into our schedule...  and by next Monday, the currently-vastly-disorganized schoolroom and teacher and schedule will be totally organized and ready to operate at maximum efficiency for the rest of the school year.

Um, yeah.  It was a nice thought.

I think I'll go back to bed now.

I have mentioned this on this blog before, but it bears repeating:

In every homeschool, there are days you execute the plan, and other days you'd just as soon execute the children.

Guess which sort of a day we had today?

(Oh, and if you're thinking, Hold on a minute!  How dare you say 'every homeschool'?  We do not have days like the latter at my house, ever!  then I offer my sincerest apologies along with a request that you kindly not tell me about it.  Because misery loves company.  On the other hand, if you're thinking that you never have days like the former, feel free to go ahead and say so.)

At some point during this miserable day frought with bad tempers and loud bickering and torn trampoline nets, I started thinking those inevitable thoughts that go something like this: Do I homeschool my children because I have lost my sanity, or have I lost my sanity because I homeschool my children?  And I couldn't think of one good reason why I actually continue on this crazy course.  It's what one of my friends calls a "big yellow bus" day-- a day when nothing in the world sounds better than putting the kids on the big yellow bus and waving goodbye as it turns the corner.  I mean, really.  Why do I continue to torture myself this way?  It isn't worth it.  Sending them to school would be so easy.  Etc, etc.

After a few minutes of this, I looked at my planner and saw that today is the day I have marked with a .  (That comes about 8 days before the day I mark with a , and it means, "This is the week where I don't get into discussions about issues that push my buttons and I don't think about anything too hard because everything is going to make me either  or .")  And so even though the miserable course of the day was entirely the fault of the children (really, truly; I wouldn't lie about this), I needed to be careful not to make it worse by making more out of it than it really was.  So when one of the children tearfully talked about the rotten day we were having, I told them what I told myself:  "Let's not let one bad day make us want to pitch everything."  So we agreed and then made ramen soup and got a little more schoolwork done.

There are days (like last Tuesday) when it's okay to say, "Oh, we're having a bad day; let's just blow off the rest of the list," and other days when to do so would be to give postive reinforcement to negative behavior.  Because today was one of the latter, we'll be finishing schoolwork after dinner tonight.  (Or they will anyway; I'm going to try not to get too involved.)  Ugh.  Maybe tomorrow we'll execute the plan.

Thank God His mercies are new every morning.

Notes to 13-going-on-8-year-old KWAD--

Re yesterday:

1.  When out on a trampoline break, it does not behoove you to bombard your little sister with a football until she cries.  We have been over and over this.

2.  If turning on the TV during "school" hours while Mom is occupied with sister's math, be certain to change it back to the previous channel before turning off.  Otherwise your sins will certainly find you out when Dad goes to watch the news.

3.  When Mom drops you off at the house after piano so that you can "finish up your schoolwork and chores" while she runs errands for an hour, she is expecting you to do more than five minutes' worth of work.

4.  In light of the scenarios outlined in #1 and #3, it is NOT a good idea to say, upon Mother's return from said errands, "I need a break from my work.  Can I go out on the trampoline?"

5.  Should you decide to spray your sister with cleaner while spiffing up the bathroom, make sure not to get any cleaner on the tile floor.  Because if Mom is mad as she stomps in there to give you what-for, she will be furious by the time she picks herself up off the floor.

6.  Remember how much you hate ADHD meds?  Another day like this one and those little white pills may be part of your life once again.

7.  I love you anyway, and I always will.

Love, Mom

Edit:  I decided it would NOT ruin the post to add the following.  These notes are directed to the same kid as above.

More notes re yesterday:

1.  I am proud of you for being diligent to get your math done, and doing it well to boot.

2. Good job getting your copywork quote done during your sister's piano lesson!

3.  I think it is great that you finished a 272-page book which was supposed to be 2 weeks' worth of literature, in 3 days-- and still got your other schoolwork done besides.  I love it when you latch onto a book and can hardly put it down.  (Although I'm not too thrilled about that lights-still-on-at-11:45-pm business.)

See, you are growing up in many ways.
Love again, Mom

(To my readers, esp the homeschoolers, because inquiring minds will inevitably ask:  Dragon's Gate, by Laurence Yep-- the story of an immigrant Chinese boy working on the transcontinental railroad.)

It was not a splenderifically productive schoolday for us today.  I suppose that being Monday after a 4-day birthday weekend didn't help, nor did the fact that we are still struggling to get into the routine and flow of our new "homeschool year".  Which would be a little easier if we would actually put the "home" into "homeschool" a little more.  Monday is one of the few days --and beginning next week, the only day-- in our school week that we are not running to some good activity or another.  (And no, I don't like all the running, but that's how it is this fall.)  So it is supposed to be a good, productive day for schoolwork.

Yeah.

I had to leave the house at 8 to take Cheez to a doctor appointment.  I made sure I had the kids' math ready and checklists printed out and instructions written.  Huz would come in at some point to make sure they got up and got going on things.  I figured they could get their morning routines finished, eat breakfast, and at least get started on schoolwork and piano practice before I got home at 10:15-ish.  Because I am delusional like that.

Yeah.

I walked in the door at 10:09 and they were in their pajamas finishing up their Before Breakfast Things.  "We got distracted," they said, and so went the day.

I am trying to let the kids' distractedness and dawdling and lack of diligence be their problem and not mine.  Today it was definitely a problem.  Total work completed by Spaz over the next six hours:  (1) Math (2) Piano practice (3) Spiffing up half-bathroom.  In six hours, people.  Fuzz did a little better.

Huz and I both had talks with Spaz about his need to take responsibilty for his work.  Considering all the outside activities he has going on right now (football, drama, piano, soccer, Friday classes), I have cut his current "workload" down to the essentials plus a little extra.  But that leaves me very little wiggle room for caving being merciful when things don't get done.  If it has to be pushed to the next day, it gets piled on top of the next day's work.  And if the next day happens to be a "short" day because we have an afternoon activity or lesson, well then, the work accumulates.  This is what happened last week.  And this week was off to an even worse start.

The day was not a total loss, however.  For one thing, I kept my cool and did not nag or scold or lose my temper.  Go, me.  For another, I had some holds come in at the library, and it was a beautiful day to pick them up on my bike.  (The library is less than a mile away, so I try not to drive there when the weather is decent.)  The Tagalong was still hooked up from the last ride, so I invited Fuzz to come along even though she too was behind in her schoolwork.  Because she is still "little", I am trying not let schoolwork preclude opportunities like a bike ride to the library on a cool September day.  I did tell her I wasn't going to "cancel" any schoolwork because of the bike ride, which I would normally have done, but she happily agreed to come anyway.  So I grabbed my backpack and we bid adieu to Spaz, who was finally getting started on his math.  (It was 2 pm by this time, and so far the only things checked off his list were piano & Bible reading.)

"Oh, can you see if you can find some books on Native American wars & weapons?" he asked.  That fit right in with our history for the week, so I readily agreed.  Of course, "some" would inevitably turn into "lots".  So much for riding home with 5 thin books in a backpack.

After huffing and puffing all the way home with my 40-pound backpack, I took it to the bathroom scale to weigh it.  22 pounds.  Okay, well, it felt like 40.  Some of it was uphill, you know.

Spaz managed to finish his math and do his chore before four o'clock, and then, with much work still undone, it was time to get ready for his first football game of the season.  We had to have him at the field at 5 pm, and with the game not starting til 6, I grabbed one of the books I'd picked up to read to Fuzz in the truck while we waited.  History reading, check.  Whatever works.

Let's not talk about the game.  It was 42-12 and we didn't get the 42; 'nuff said.  Let's talk instead about after the game.  The After the Game in which the normally indulgent Huz amazingly tells Spaz that he may not watch any Monday Night Football because he was not diligent in getting his work done today, and in which the normally argumentative Spaz amazingly says, "Okay Dad", and in which I fall over backwards in a dead faint and have to be scraped up off the floor.  And the After the Game in which Spaz decides to wind down for the night by doing some of the schoolwork he didn't get done, and does it.

So who needs ADD meds to focus when you can just play a good, rousing, tiring game of football?  And the day thus ended better than it began.  Now to see what tomorrow will hold...

The Natural Speller gives word lists, spelling rules, and activities that you can use to create a customized spelling program for your students in grades 1-8.  I bought it in 1994 and have used it for 3 kids at all grade levels.  I never needed to buy anything else... until now. 

  I love this program; it takes such a logical and sensible approach to spelling. And yes, of course I tweak it. I tweak everything.

  

'Twould be nice if the icons would just line up horizontally for me instead of having to arrange themselves in a column.  Anyway, I thought the books were just "okay", but the kids loved them, and that's a good thing.