Hello, Old Friend
My whole body just released a sigh of relief as I watched my trusty blog template open up a fresh page for me to write on. Can you believe I've been writing in here for 10 years? Josh took the kids to Academy to buy some soccer cleats for the boys, and so I am sitting in my favorite IKEA chair by my bed. I've turned on classical music, and I'm just soaking it in. My soul needs some soothing today.
For reasons I can't fully explain, I have been really depressed lately. God is good; I intellectually assent to that fact, but in the details comprising each long day you wouldn't be able to tell that from my life or attitude. I am trying to home school Noah (6th grade) and Seth (Kindergarten) and still manage Eden. I think back to the year Noah and I began home schooling. He was in 2nd grade, my gap-toothed little academic sponge. We loved it.
Four years later, home schooling has disintegrated into a flimsy imitation of what it used to be. If I'm going to be honest, I hate it now. We began school last Wednesday just over a week ago. Every day I have contemplated and plotted how I'm going to quit. I start imaginary conversations with Josh in my head telling him we're going to have to find a new plan. But I can't quit. I'm stuck. The public schools around here are really bad, and the nearest Christian school I would consider is 30 minutes away (that would add up to 2 tedious hours in the car every day). I feel helpless in a What Did I Get Myself Into? sort of way.
I have proven myself to be a lousy manager (we're doing videos, y'all, and I'm floundering), and yet here I am trying to supervise 6th grade, Kindergarten, and someone who is the very definition of "loose cannon" (I looked it up; it means "unpredictable person." E.Den.). Let me digress for a minute and tell you what Eden alone is capable of while I'm occupied simply trying to help Seth pay attention to his online teacher. The other day Eden sprayed Pledge all over my kitchen floor. Even after I wiped it with a towel, we were slipping on it, three-stooges-style, all day until I finally took time for Noah to mop it. Another time she peed in her little potty, and then tried to dump it into the big potty all by herself. That did not go as planned, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Short story: If it can be spilled, dumped out, messed up, gotten into, destroyed, demolished, or otherwise broken, Eden is willing and capable and up for the challenge in every way.
It's rather nightmarish, actually. Sometimes dreams are a reflection of our deepest fears and anxieties. When I was in college, I had frequent nightmares about being late to class, and not being able to find the classroom or my books or a decent outfit, or what-have-you. Last night I dreamed I was responsible for a class of 7th graders on a field trip. No one could hear me and it was like herding cats. I didn't have any control over the group. That dream was pretty similar to how I feel about homeschooling these days. It's such a helpless feeling to watch, powerless, as your house falls down around you in shambles, your kids don't get along, like, EVER (that's almost a different subject, but not), and you are responsible for teaching them not only academically, but spiritually and socially.
I know there are women out there who home school their 10 children, take time for play dates and ministry, tend a large garden, and make their own laundry detergent, but these days I'm doing well just to survive another day. Nobody is happy ('cause if Mom ain't happy...), nobody is thriving, and generally I'm just thankful to be found alive at the end of the day. By that point, my sanity is gone, patience drained out about 3 hours ago, and I'm so ready to chuck it all and let the big yellow bus take my kids away tomorrow.
There has got to be a light at the end of this darkness. I'm praying that God will help me out of this pit!
For reasons I can't fully explain, I have been really depressed lately. God is good; I intellectually assent to that fact, but in the details comprising each long day you wouldn't be able to tell that from my life or attitude. I am trying to home school Noah (6th grade) and Seth (Kindergarten) and still manage Eden. I think back to the year Noah and I began home schooling. He was in 2nd grade, my gap-toothed little academic sponge. We loved it.
Four years later, home schooling has disintegrated into a flimsy imitation of what it used to be. If I'm going to be honest, I hate it now. We began school last Wednesday just over a week ago. Every day I have contemplated and plotted how I'm going to quit. I start imaginary conversations with Josh in my head telling him we're going to have to find a new plan. But I can't quit. I'm stuck. The public schools around here are really bad, and the nearest Christian school I would consider is 30 minutes away (that would add up to 2 tedious hours in the car every day). I feel helpless in a What Did I Get Myself Into? sort of way.
I have proven myself to be a lousy manager (we're doing videos, y'all, and I'm floundering), and yet here I am trying to supervise 6th grade, Kindergarten, and someone who is the very definition of "loose cannon" (I looked it up; it means "unpredictable person." E.Den.). Let me digress for a minute and tell you what Eden alone is capable of while I'm occupied simply trying to help Seth pay attention to his online teacher. The other day Eden sprayed Pledge all over my kitchen floor. Even after I wiped it with a towel, we were slipping on it, three-stooges-style, all day until I finally took time for Noah to mop it. Another time she peed in her little potty, and then tried to dump it into the big potty all by herself. That did not go as planned, and I'm just going to leave it at that. Short story: If it can be spilled, dumped out, messed up, gotten into, destroyed, demolished, or otherwise broken, Eden is willing and capable and up for the challenge in every way.
It's rather nightmarish, actually. Sometimes dreams are a reflection of our deepest fears and anxieties. When I was in college, I had frequent nightmares about being late to class, and not being able to find the classroom or my books or a decent outfit, or what-have-you. Last night I dreamed I was responsible for a class of 7th graders on a field trip. No one could hear me and it was like herding cats. I didn't have any control over the group. That dream was pretty similar to how I feel about homeschooling these days. It's such a helpless feeling to watch, powerless, as your house falls down around you in shambles, your kids don't get along, like, EVER (that's almost a different subject, but not), and you are responsible for teaching them not only academically, but spiritually and socially.
I know there are women out there who home school their 10 children, take time for play dates and ministry, tend a large garden, and make their own laundry detergent, but these days I'm doing well just to survive another day. Nobody is happy ('cause if Mom ain't happy...), nobody is thriving, and generally I'm just thankful to be found alive at the end of the day. By that point, my sanity is gone, patience drained out about 3 hours ago, and I'm so ready to chuck it all and let the big yellow bus take my kids away tomorrow.
There has got to be a light at the end of this darkness. I'm praying that God will help me out of this pit!
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