It's been a very different kind of week for me this past week.  It started out just fine, but then just seemed to go downhill each day.  Mostly, I feel like I didn't accomplish much due to a bad headache I had most of the week.  I felt it coming on during the day on Monday, and by Tuesday it seemed to be a full fledged migraine.  Ugh.  Needless to say, we were pretty relaxed in our schooling this week.  The kids really did fine and were pretty quiet at those times when I needed to rest.  The headache was better by the end of the week, but I woke up on Friday with my ears very plugged up.  Even now, on Sunday, I find everything muffled and my own voice strange to hear.  So, I don't know now if I really had a migraine, or if it was the beginning of a bad cold - though I have no other symptoms.  In any case, I feel like I've been totally lazy this week.

In my quiet time with the Lord I've been trying to figure out what I need to learn from this.  You see, I've felt lately that I sometimes push too hard to get all the school work done, and done well.  Not a bad goal in and of itself, but there are times when I think I just need to relax and let my kids enjoy what they're learning - and not worry about checking off the boxes that tell me I've accomplished what I set out to do. 

For example, my daughter is doing a science fair project this year in which she has to write a research paper.  I've been after her to work on it and get it done.  Procrastination is something I tend to struggle with so I want my kids to overcome that.  As it was, I felt she was behind.  She's doing this through a class in our area and so I had her meet with the teacher of the class to help her get going on her paper a little better.  When I came to pick her up, I find out she's way ahead of many of the other students in regards to her paper.  She's very detailed in all the sections (procedure, observations, outcome, etc.), and really only needs to work on the research section of her paper a little more.

I was very happy for her, but feeling a little convicted myself since I had pushed her so hard.  So when the headache came, I wondered if maybe I need to just slow down a little more and enjoy the process.  After all, our goal in homeschooling wasn't to check off all the boxes and say we'd accomplished this much in our education.  The real goal is to educate my children, instill in them a love of learning, and train them to be godly men and women of character. 

My headache is still there somewhat, and my ears are still plugged up.  So maybe that has nothing to do with what I learned this week.  Or maybe it did.  It gave me time to reflect back on our reasons for homeschooling - kind of a time to refocus and get back on track.  It's a good reminder to be less concerned about checking off the list and more focused on real learning.