The Joy of Sick Days

I love sick days. Now mind you, we rarely get sick so it's almost a treat to just turn off everything for a day and simply rest. I'm sure it would be different if we were sick often. But I also like who my kids are when they are sick. We have one strong, never changing rule in our house. "No whining!" It is our guiding principle for most activities and general way of life. So when my kids are sick they just lay around. What's not to like?

Of course sickness has a way of working through a house once it starts. All of a sudden a week goes by and each day has had a different kid down and out. Thankfully I do not get sick very often either. (The key is hand washing. Any doctor will tell you that.) So by the end of the week, I have been able to just sit on the couch with each of my kids and either watch a movie together while we snuggle or read to them while we snuggle. Catch the theme?

As a science teacher, I am aware that most medicine (other than antibiotics) is just to help lessen the pain of sickness. It does not help you get better. You get better almost entirely because God has created the most amazing defense mechanism right inside you called your Immune system. I love to teach about it because it is so well done. If you were a military strategist, you could not design a better army to ward of disease in the human body. Seriously, read up on it. And guess what? It always wins! If it doesn't, you die. That is something to just marvel about in your spare time.

But back to my sick kids. As impressed as I am with our Immune system, I have often wondered what really helps kids get better. Is it the rest, chicken noodle soup and extra sleep or is it the extra attention? Who's heart is not greatly served when someone stops what they are doing, gives them their full attention and lavishes them with care? Perhaps that is the extra spark the immune system needs to defeat the evil intruders. Perhaps God even allows sickness in our lives, just so we can be reminded about the importance of our being over the product of our work. Perhaps.

So enjoy your sick days. Let go of the agenda and curriculum and give yourself and those needy little hearts some grace to just be today. I am confident that even as the care giver, I am blessed by sick days because I don't have to teach about love, I just get to do it. Even in the midst of puking, we can experience another homeschool success story.

My secret weapon

There is probably a lot of debate out there about what should be the cornerstone of your homeschool philosophy. I am sure I could explain what we believe if I really had to, but I don't really want to. (I do feel strongly about not using prepositions to end sentences with. :) )

But I was reminded the other day during my daughters 15th birthday party that we have had one constant companion during all our homeschool years. "To the costume bin!" was yelled from downstairs and a great cheer went up. Then I heard one of her friends say "A costume bin? Rachel that's why you are my best friend."

My kids have spent a good portion of their homeschool years in costume. This is one of the privileges of doing school at home. Not only can we do it faster and tailor the lessons to the child, but we can act it out! That is awesome!

I understand I am probably raising 4 thespians, but we have also done piano lessons, soccer, martial arts, and baseball along with the stage work. But don't you wish you could have done your homework in a Super Rachel costume? I had to remake that costume 3 times because she still wanted to wear it as she continued to grow. Once when my oldest was little, she was invited to a birthday party as Batman, because that is how she introduced herself for several years. Initially the parents didn't even know who she really was until we came to the party.

We've got robin hood stuff, buzz lightyear stuff, a suit of armor, power rangers, a caterpillar/butterfly, singing chipmunks and much more. One year my daughter wanted to be a rock for Halloween. Yeah, a rock. So we constructed a harness and made the rock out of paper mache and chicken wire. We even included a little shoot with a candy sign. She loved it! (Amazingly she looked exactly the same in all the pictures!)

Another time my son wanted to be a redbox machine. It was a spray painted red box with movie covers on it. Easy! My other son wanted to be Doc Oc. Doll rods and dryer hoses under a trench coat. Bam! The last couple of years they have been working with themes so they could all dress up together. Last year they were the 4 main characters of Avatar.

But at the end of the day it's about encouraging their creativity. Recently, I heard a speaker say "Do you know what a kid's job is? To play and create." I agree because if kids have a safe place to play and create, they will learn. I'm not advocating throwing away all the lesson plans, but be sure you make space for pointless creativity.

One time during our lessons, my daughter was drawing something while I was trying to read to the kids. I scolded her to pay attention and asked her what she was doing. She showed me an illustration of what I had been reading to them. Nice job Mom! Of course I apologized and encouraged her to continue drawing. Just because I don't learn that way doesn't mean they don't learn that way.

So the costume bin might not work for everyone, but how do you know unless you try? It might just be the key to you having your own homeschool success story.

Shortcuts

It's ok to have some shortcuts in life. Some areas don't lend themselves well to shortcuts. You really do have to do math is a pretty specific order. It matters. But if you are a bit creative you can find a few shortcuts in most areas. Here are few of mine that I used during homeschooling and even now.

Baking:
Boxed mixes are wonderful. I keep my pantry stocked with cheap jiffy mixes of various muffin flavors. Our favorite is one box of banana, one box of chocolate and a couple of old bananas that are starting to attract fruit flies. Throw in some chocolate chips that are always in the pantry as well and it is a wonderful breakfast or treat after school. All you need is milk and eggs. So easy and quick. Be sure to get some silicone muffin pans. They go right in the dishwasher! Amen! Don't fall into the trap that all homeschool moms always bake from scratch. Some do. I try to become friends with those people, but I was pretty busy as a homeschool mom. I appreciated the shortcut. (I also use jellies, jams and frozen fruit as surprise fillings in muffins. Husbands really like this too.)

Meal Prep:
Buy in bulk but wrap meat and chicken breasts in plastic wrap individually and then in large ziplock bags and lay flat in your freezer. This gives you the most flexibility for how many you need for a meal and the quickest thawing time. If you divide bulk hamburger into 1 pound bags, put them into gallon ziplocs and beat them flat. They store better and defrost very quickly. It was really helpful.

Math:
Flashcards, school house rock dvd, FlashMaster (hand held electronic flash cards - feels like a game and allows you to focus on a kids specific issues. It also allows them to work independently). Doing math everyday can get boring to some kids, so break it up and let them use these as well to reinforce what they are already learning. It allows math to come in a different door for some kids too.

Puzzles:
Find some really good puzzles of the world. It will make geography so much more enjoyable. Just pick a rainy day, cancel lessons and do the puzzle all day. I found doing puzzles in general also really helpful to occupy my little ones when I needed to focus with the older kids. I still have a sizable bin of younger kid puzzles in my house. My friend's kids enjoy them now when we are trying to talk as adults.

Do your 20's:
We had a time everyday when the kids had to rotate on 3 things; 20 minutes of piano, 20 minutes of spanish, 20 minutes of typing. Be sure to have some timers in the house and just say "go" at the top of the hour. I usually got to sit down and read something to myself during this time and take a little break.

I am sure if you give yourself permission, you can think of some shortcuts you would like to take. You have permission. Go forth and take the shortcut!

Teenagers

I really enjoy teenagers. My mom was good with teenagers so I probably benefitted from her example.

Right now my daughter is downstairs having her 15th birthday party with a bunch of her friends. The evening consisted of pizza, ice cream cake, presents, a treasure hunt and making a video for their you tube channel.

Earlier today I was pimping out my oldest daughter's ride with "hello kitty" paraphernalia. (Yeah, you heard me right!) She is all about the korean boy bands.

During the party tonight, my son and husband turned his home office into a man cave for the night and they are watching "The Hulk" projected on a big screen while sitting in lazy boys.

My youngest is only 11 and though technically not a teenager, he is running with his sister's birthday crowd as the cute younger brother. (He is an outstanding extra in all their videos!)

I love watching each of these kids become their own person. At times it's clear they are all brothers and sisters. (Check out their youtube channel at Replogle Studios) But at other times, they seem so different I wonder if I am their mother.

When I was a kid, we spent a great deal of time with babysitters. Life had its challenges and both my parents always seemed to be working. Sadly, it resulted in my brother and I endlessly fighting. My prayer when I became a mother was that my kids would enjoy each other. It seemed like a simple prayer and we have had our challenges but they are good friends. I believe homeschooling really helped make that happen.

The shorter school days and learning together, gave them time to be the creative kids God made them to be. I know there is a lot that goes into making a family, but I am thankful that homeschooling gave us the flexibility and freedom for us to discover them and for them to discover each other.

Now that is Another Homeschool Success Story!

I once got a "B"

I remember it well. All of life depended on getting straight A's in high school so I could go to college, get a job and make my life count. But no mater how I tried, I could not type fast enough in typing class to ever register an A grade. I worked so hard. I stayed after class and practiced whenever I could but I just could never turn the corner in my fluency of the old Selectric typewriter machine. (Yes, this was before computers.)

So I managed to go through all of high school with A's in every subject from choir, to ap chemistry to airplane building, but got one "B" in typing class. It was devastating. How could I go to college now? What University would take me?

Yes, this is all very dramatic, but it is actually how I felt and worse yet, so did my mother. The good news is that God still allowed me go to college. (A very good one I might add.) He allowed me to earn 2 degrees. He figured out a way for me to pay my college debt back within 2 years of graduating. (The key is to marry well!) I even got married, raised a family and have been greatly blessed, all in spite of getting a "B" in high school.

I think you get the point. Our God is bigger than the grades. We can ease up in this area a bit, both on us and our kids. I find homeschoolers have a strange relationship with grades. I loved that grades were not a big part of our homeschooling. It allowed the emphasis to be on the content, not just retaining the content until testing. Education can turn into fact retention very quickly. So it was freeing to just focus on the joy of learning.

But then there is that icky feeling always creeping in the back of your head. "Am I doing enough? Are they really learning anything?" The freedom seems to come at a price. Often when I was around other homeschool families, I found myself constantly comparing my school day to their school day. "Hmm, we don't seem to be doing latin derivatives like that family. Hmmm, I don't start my school day til 9am. They are at the table at 6am." If the goal had been to learn some new cool things to try, then the comparisons may have been useful. Instead I continually found myself just feeling like a failure.

This is the hard part about not having grades. We all want some form of a measuring stick and yet that is supposed to be a positive of homeschooling; less emphasis on grades and more on the joy of learning. So I needed to just let go and trust that my love for learning was enough for my kids. I also needed to rest in the idea that God would pick up the slack. From where I stand now, it is clear He has done just that.

So chill out! Stop comparing your school plan to everyone else's. They are your kids and you are their teacher. It will be unique to you and shouldn't look like anyone else anyway. Feel free to exchange ideas with other families, but hold them loosely and keep what you like and throw away what you don't. I would have died (or killed someone) if we had tried to be at the table every morning by 6am! Good for them. Sleep for me!

You're doing great mom (or dad). Look to Jesus to affirm the work of your hands. Give yourself some room to pursue the things that interest you. Don't miss that one of the things you teach your kids is the joy of learning. So just enjoy learning with them today.

I hate grammar!

I love science. I hate grammar! When we first started down the road of homeschooling, I was very fearful that my kids would be poor spellers and writers because it was such a struggle for me. Well that is largely how things have played out. 3 out of 4 of them are poor spellers and each of them struggles with grammar concepts. They have slowly become better writers but I will give the schools more credit for that than myself.

Both my husband and I are hard science people and though he knows his grammar concepts better than I do, I honestly just could not see the point of drilling those things into my kids heads. Our focus, rather, has always been exposing them to good writing.

I specifically chose a curriculum that was very strong in literature so we were always reading a number of books together and individually. We also spent an entire year just going through the Chronicles of Narnia. At my retirement party, each one of my kids said they would miss sitting on a blanket together eating an afternoon snack and listening to me read. I could cry just thinking about how much I enjoyed those times together.

So all I wanted to say was don't miss the experiences of doing things you enjoy with your kids in order to check more things off your to do list. If you are really going to linger in some places along the way, somethings gotta give and that is ok. God will be faithful to clean up our messes or fill in the holes we leave. I have yet to meet a homeschool mom that wasn't a bit (a lot) overly responsible. Be sure to put yourself in the equation. Are you having fun? What can you do differently today that will allow you to smile and laugh with your kids before the day is out? Why not try it.

Here's to being #4

Often I hear kids born later in a family lament about how there are so few pictures of them compared to their siblings. It's true. It's tough being #4 in a family of 4. Often when I think of my youngest I think, "Who raised him?" I'm sure I was involved but it seemed like he just grew up and learned stuff while we were all busy doing life.

Recently we decided to ask the school to push him up a grade in math. The kid just loves the stuff! I remember how his eyes lit up when he learned how to do borrowing subtraction. It was like I had given him a great gift. He has just killed all his math elements since starting school last year and we wanted to make sure he was being challenged. The kid loves a challenge.

So they gave him a little test and agreed that he was ready for making the jump. Each day now, he has honor's classes with the 6th grade kids on the first floor, but gets to be a big 7th grade honor student for one period a day on the second floor. He thinks it's pretty cool and so do we.

But here is the part I love the most. When his teacher agreed to move him up, she said she would miss him in class because he is so sweet. How often do you here that about a middle school boy these days? That is the part of the story I love the most.

I also love that he hugs me everyday before and after school. I love that he asks me everyday if I have a note in his lunch. (Even though I was incredibly faithful with that all year last year.) I love that he is kind.

Don't forget the goal Mom. Our society screams in our ears the need to train our kid's talents. I don't disagree that we should be faithful and help our children excel in what they are gifted to do, but it's not the highest goal. Don't let the world derail you from the things that matter most and that is your children's character. The world is full of talented people being exploited by people without character. Just turn on the tv at night. But what the world needs is people with integrity, honesty, compassion and love; in short character.

Remember today that if you love and enjoy your kids, you've accomplished 85% of your goal already in homeschooling. The rest is just dates and definitions. I love to learn and I know that has infected my kids, but I am much more thankful that as I've learned to love they have caught that too.

God's kindness: being stabbed!

My son had a very difficult time adjusting to 7th grade. He was very sad every morning before school. Almost daily he begged us to bring him back home to homeschooling. This persisted for 5 weeks.

We inquired with the school and his older sister to make sure he was not being bullied. He had some trouble with math class, but literally it was handled within days of the start of school. He just needed a quick primer in some terminology we had not covered in our math curriculum at home. But the sadness continued and seemed to grow worse.

One day we got a call from the school that he was in the nurses office and had gotten into trouble. Immediately I thought "He hates school so much that he is going to just be bad and get himself kicked out!" But as the asst. principal explained the situation, I grew madder at God. The story goes my son was in shop class when he and another boy started sending escalating mean notes back and forth to each other until the other boy pulled out a pencil and stabbed my son in the leg with it. They sent him to the nurses office to tend to the small wound, but it was clearly a violent act.

In my heart the dialog with God went like this "So this is how you are going to help the scared boy? Let him get stabbed in shop class?" I was very disappointed with God's plan to help my son through his fear. But the truth is, it worked.

He came home after school, almost chipper. That was surprising. The next morning, he was cracking jokes as I drove them to school. What? I was so confused. So I finally said to him "What is up with you? Didn't you just get stabbed yesterday?"

His response defied his age. "Yeah I did. I was so afraid something bad was going to happen and then it did. But I handled it and now I feel more confident that I will be ok."

Clearly, my plan and God's plan, are not the same thing. But perhaps I should just trust His plan considering He is standing on a much higher mountain than I am and can see exactly where this train is going. So God cares for my son's fearful heart by having him stabbed. Yes, that is truly another homeschool success story.

The Year of Transition

When our oldest was ready for 8th grade, we put her in public school to give her a year of transition before High School. We encouraged her to focus on the "systems" of school. How to get your locker open, stay organized, get to class on time, catch the bus and deal with bullies. It was a crazy hard year for her and us. I still had 3 kids at home and living in two worlds for a couple years til the others were ready was a lot of work. Two very different schedules and in fact I really was burning the candle on both ends to make it all happen.

So this was the year of transition for everyone else. Our second daughter was ready for 8th grade, but what we learned with the first was it is good to have a buddy. So our 3rd child was going into 7th and it just made sense to send them together. However that left only one at home and trust me, he's not a kid who can be homeschooled by himself. So in one year everyone was gone.

Wow! That really hurt. My heart was so sad when they all left that I just slept most of the day while they were gone for the first 2 weeks. I would get everyone out the door and then just go upstairs and fall asleep for 4 hours. Sadness has not been a travel buddy of mine. I prefer anger. But there was nothing to be angry about, it was just sad and I missed them.

God was gracious to blow out my knee so I really didn't have the option to just get busy with something else. I needed to just sit in it and heal. The healing was surprisingly deep. I was tired from the homeschooling, but I was also tired from all the rest of life that is hard to balance and manage when you put homeschooling at the center of your life. I had ministry scars, a scar on my knee from surgery, scars on my marriage and still a wealth of scars from my past. I was just so worn out. More so than I ever realized. I won't say all the homeschool moms I know are in that boat, but I bet more are than you think.

We are massive overachievers by nature. I think that is why many of us undertake the daunting task of our kids education. Honestly, I think that is great, but it does catch up with us over time and especially if we are not holding tightly to the hand of Jesus. Chris Rice has a song that says "freedom from myself will be the sweetest rest I've ever known" when singing about heaven. This sums up my year. I have finally found some freedom from myself. I like it. I am a tyrant on many days.

There are many great stories from this past year. But the bottom line, is everyone is doing great! They all found their way into the honors classes by mid year and we could not be prouder of their academic success. But what we really love is how they love their friends and teachers. This gives us a special feeling of success. I never set out to raise really smart and talented kids. I guess I assumed those are more gifts from the Lord that he doles out as he sees fit. I wanted to raise loving people. Children who knew they were loved by us and God and thus could love the broken world around them. It seems like we are on the right track. Thank you Jesus.

So that is another homeschool success story we praise God for everyday.