Family Life

Hi again, just wanted to say that I have submitted to The Carnival of Family Life, this week it is being hosted at Everything Under the Moon. Be sure to check it out, I love that the entries have be divided up into categories! A little sumthin' for everyone.

Speaking of family life, I was thinking today of the modern day dilemma: To home school, or not home school. Let me just say that I wrestled with the idea and found that I feared I lacked the intelligence and patience to commit. Anna and love each other very much, but I just couldn't imagine the two of us being able to stay on track and not be short tempered with each other. Anna is very much like me in that she has a short attention span and becomes frustrated easily... don't even get me started on stubbornness!

I have had several people poo-poo the idea that I lack the mental capacities to home school, I guess that is just the "you'll never amount to anything" coming out. I just want my kids to have the best, and as far as education, I just don't feel capable. Now, if my husband wanted to home school, I would have no problem with that. Well, except for the fact that I would have to hold down 3 1/2 jobs to make what he does.

As I said before, I love her so much it hurts. The flip side is we are so much a like, we drive each other to drink (milk of course, preceded by vast and furious amount of chocolate consumption). Absence makes the heart grow fonder, and we literally have bowled each other over with love when I picked her up from kindergarten the first 2 days of school.

I will continue home schooling in my own way... just today we 3 gals enjoyed an art class together in our very own dining room. I was able to share my knowledge of one of the things she and I love the most- art. I explained how to identify basic shapes in still life arrangements- breaking the subject down in to geometrical shapes such as squares, circles and triangles. I taught her how to change those basic shapes into 3 dimensional objects with the use of various grades of shading. And finally, I taught her the value of "negative space", and how to use it to draw the subject matter. We had a lot of fun, and Anna drew and shaded her first cube. Meanwhile, Emma scratched and scribbled away happily with green and orange crayons. I was such the proud mama bear!

I just realized that in many ways , Anna has home schooled me. She has shown me how to be the mom I wanted to be, by loving me despite my faults.

I think I my decision is based on what I felt was best for Anna, and thinking about our art class makes me feel better about my decision. I guess my point is that even though I have handed over the majority of her schooling to better and more patient teachers than I, I am still a mom, and I won't ever stop sharing my knowledge with my kids. More now, less later as they decide that they are smarter than me. *smile*