Did you play house as a little girl? I did ... longer than most of my peers.
Sometimes it feels like I am still playing house ... pretending to know what I am doing. I am so far from perfect, and today I am feeling it more than most days.
I sometimes bicker with my husband over petty little things. The honest truth is he tries to get me to bicker at times, because he finds it funny to make me angry. He laughs then and tells me I am so Irish, and I am cute when I get angry. (Something I am sure that Irish people everywhere are now angry about.) I usually look at him and tell him he is as stubborn as he is Swedish.
I lose my patience with the kids. I raise my voice at times. I let too many little things slide, until the house is a mess and then I am frustrated by it. I say "just a minute" too often.
We watch too much TV. Really, we do. We play on the computers too much. We love to read, but we also spend lots of time in front of "screens". Sometimes we do both ... read while watching TV.
I am perpetually behind in laundry ... either the washing of it, or the folding of it. I have conquered this bad habit several times in my adult life, but I have slipped back into it again.
I let the math grading pile up for weeks sometimes. Um ... lots of times. I say "just a minute" when the kids need math help ... and it usually is longer than a minute before I get there.
Many weeks I plan our school week on Monday ... sometimes even on Tuesday. They do the basic textbooks and catch up last weeks reading on those Mondays where I have not planned yet.
Yeah, I have a garden and chickens ... but I usually wait until the weeds are overwhelming the plants before I go weed it. Steve is keeping me accountable this year, but I tend to huff and puff and drag my feet until I get out there and discover it isnt that bad after all.
(This entire post is without apostrophes in my contractions because I somehow messed up my keyboard and it is using that apostrophe key to pull up a "Quick Find Links" panel at the bottom of my screen. Oddly, though, the quotation mark works. Should I keep using formal "is not" or should I just leave them without apostrophes like isnt? It is driving me batty and I can not fix it!)
Back to previous paragraph ... dragging my feet, procrastinating, etc.
The same thing is true about folding my laundry. I keep putting it off, and then once I start I wonder why I waited so long ... it doesnt really take that long, after all. (sorry for the no apostrophe thing ... again)
I am always looking for the easy way. What is the easiest way for ME to teach this to my kids?
I have chickens now, but I still do not have a good chicken house built. I have never killed a chicken, never plucked a chicken, and I usually handle my meat after it is "packaged" by a processor. I hope my chickens live good long lives ... I am not looking forward to killing or gutting or plucking.
I do not bake very often. I quit baking my own bread several years ago. I use more paper diapers than cloth diapers most weeks. The "shoulds" still hang over my head, though. I "should" bake more often, I should bake my own bread ...
We have not started our 4-H projects ... pre-entry is next week, and the fair is in a month. I am not cut out for this.
I am lazy. I procrastinate ... obviously since the 4-H projects are still not started. I am impatient. I do not plan my menus unless we are having company.
I only look like I have my act together. Sometimes I feel like I am pretending. I am still playing house. Surely I am not the wife of 15 years, the mom of 7 kids, the homeschooling mom raising chickens and planning to start canning!?!? Am I really a mom of a new high schooler? How can that be me?
But it is.
So now you know ... I am real. I have faults. If I sound like I have my act together, remember I am just playing house.
Well said, and I can so relate, lol! Except the cloth diaper thing. Cloth wasn't "cool" when mine were little. But I can so relate on the procrastination and then realizing it was foolish to procratinate because the job wasn't so bad. I've found that it helps if I remind myself that even though I don't get a yearly review by some supervisor at a paying job filled with some kind of feedback, what I do really does matter. Even the laundry. Hang in there. And I pray the Lord blesses your day abundantly as you hae blessed mine with your post.
Betty
So, I was refreshing ... waiting to see if Kristen had commented yet ... and then I decided she's probably TEASING me about saying "just a minute" too much. LOL!!
Hugs to you, April. I'm playing house here, too. I totally relate to what you wrote about the shoulds and procrastination. Thank you for sharing! Holly
I have this sudden compulsion to go check math books . . . I usually just look over the pages as they are either doing them or finishing them . . . as often as I can . . . which lately hasn't seemed to be all that often. It seems I'm up taking care of a chore or helping my youngest school-aged one with her math at the same time lately. I also do too much assuming that if the first half (or the bottom half) of the page is correct, they must have learned the concept, and not bother to check the other half the page.
People sometimes wonder how I "do" so much. On the surface, I do appear to do more than most of the moms I know. But, then, I often feel like a juggler performing an act. I wonder how many balls I drop. Somehow I don't feel terribly guilty about those paper diapers in my trash can when I have perfectly good cloth ones in the closet, though, in the grand scheme of things--it takes plenty of time to keep up with the rest of the laundry as it is.
May the Lord graciously lead all of us homeschooling moms in what He has called each one of us to.
As I sit here completely overwhelmed with the state my house is in and the piled up laundry and the fact that two kids are in front of the TV, one is in front of the computer, one is crying in my lap (strep throat--we were up ALL night), and one is away in the Air Force and better be studying for a tech test coming up...it sure is nice to know that I'm not the only one feeling this way! Thanks for your honesty!
Welcome to ElCloud Homeschool blog. My name is April, and I'm married to my best friend, Steve. We have 7 active, creative children ages 14, 12, 10, 8, 5, 3, and 1. This blog is where I share about our Christian faith, our family life, our homeschool, and my reviews of curriculum and books. Deuteronomy 6:4-9 is our goal for our family and our homeschool.
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Jun. 5, 2009 - Untitled Comment
Betty