Monday we worked on personal narratives in homeschool. Gregory and Melody had a few lively life experiences to write about, but poor Timothy sat and sat trying to think of some really interesting life experience that he had had that were his own alone. Literally hours passed by. I began to press him to get to work since it was obvious that several other school assignments were already pushed out of the day's schedule because he was stalled on this assignment. Well, it was one of those moments where I realized that I was focusing on the schedule and not on my son. He slipped away to the bathroom and I could tell he was crying. I felt like such a heartless fool. When he came out I sat beside him. He quietly poured out his feelings. "I don't have a life, mom. Nothing interesting happens to me. Gregory broke his tooth and went to 'disaster camp'. Melody has gone on neat youth group trips and had oral surgery." I countered with several family moments that I thought were quite interesting for a personal narrative. My suggestion - The winter storm of 2000 when we went nine days without power. Tim's counter - That was everybody. Greg and Melody could write about that too. It isn't a *personal* narrative. My suggestion - How about the time we accidentally left you in the car at church when you were 4? This is an admission of guilt friends. Yes, we really did misplace him. Worse yet, another church member noticed he was in the car alone. We hadn't even missed him. We thought he ran in with the older kids and they thought he was with us. Doh! Tim's counter - "No, I had fun. That doesn't make a good story." Well, at least that eased my feelings of guilt a bit. LOL. Several other adventures were suggested, but many of those he didn't remember well himself. They were more stories that we had told him he experienced. So we sat there, we two, for 30 minutes. Me making story suggestions and him shooting every one down.

Yes, we finally got a narrative out of him. And through the struggles, I came up with the idea to make a new category on my blog called "Family Stories" in which those priceless stories worthy of passing down can be put to print and shared. I am going to have the kids work on one or two family/individual memories each week and post them. They may be entries as short as a note of a cute saying that one of the kids often said when they were learning to talk to the grand family adventures like the winter storm of 2000 or teenager John (yes, that is my hubby) pouring vanilla extract on his arm, lighting it, and scaring the Dickens out of a co-worker saying "You are the one." when she passed down a darkened stairway. Now what kind of a nut would even come up with the idea to do such a thing much less actually do it!  Yes folks, you are in for many such adventures from my John. How he survived this long amazes me. Thankfully, the kids' awe of his adventures go only so far as asking to hear them over and over and not trying such stunts themselves. LOL But I am going to keep my eyes on Tim, just to make sure he has safe indvidual adventures.

First story entry coming soon.