Dumb blonde
Today, we only had 1/2 day of academics, not because of any field trip or other noteworthy experience, but because I had to get my roots touched up! Wish I could claim to be a natural blonde but no such luck here. However, it is refreshing when I can take a break from the daily grind to do something for myself:)
Nevertheless, we still were able to cover some basic core subjects such as the 3 R’s. Hard to really skimp on those.
I’ll be spending some time this weekend doing a bit of personal research on how better to present math in our home studies and am actually looking forward to educating myself more in this area. I may catch up on some sleep, as well.
Say “no” to video
Do you get that repeated question, “Can we play Wii?” I’m not a fan of this kind of entertainment for the kids on a frequent basis. I say let them become bored and usually after a few minutes they will find something to entertain themselves with. My oldest dove into a Narnia book after I said “no” to playing Wii.
Another homeschooling day down
Full schedule again:
Adverbs, diamanté, tesserae in art, French tutor, math drills, visual mapping, sun and seasons, book reports, fraction reduction, cursive, reading, spelling with SWR, and so forth..
After school: team gymnastics, soccer and lax practice, library run, duck watching, painting the garage, Papa John’s Pizza for dinner:)
Taxi and Take-Out on a Friday Night
Hubby and I are playing tag-team between kids’ games. Do you know that scene? It feels like we’re the directors in a Broadway show sometimes. Everything we do has only a certain amount of time to do it in, and it must be coordinated to the finest degree.
I wonder what we’ll be doing 30 years from now on a Friday night. Playing Bingo on a Caribbean island somewhere? Maybe..
It’s 9:00 and dinnertime-slap it together
Finished workout, boys returning from practice. Late night, throwing food on paper plates. Thankfully had leftover (dry) tenderloin..
Ground hog day, tomorrow.
Back and running
Back home from road trip and hit the ground running.
Morning filled with soccer, lax, and girl scouts tea. Haven’t even unpacked yet!
Thank goodness for the weekend!
I have babysitters coming in so that I don’t have to cart all of them around to the others’ individual activities. Is it wrong that I’m hoping lax gets rained out in the morning?
Falling asleep during the lax tournament
We spent the day on the lax fields. My son’s team has a lot of athletic talent. They won all 3 games which is always nice.
The bottom 3 kids and I watched the second and third games from inside of the Yukon. We were able to park pretty close to the fields so that I could watch the games while I kept them out of the weather and let them watch a movie. Apparently, I fell asleep in the car while we were sitting there because I woke up with that uncomfortable neck pain you feel after sitting in an unusual position. A small amount of drool was on the side of my face. That’s when you know you’re really tired. Thankfully, I had locked the doors and had the car alarm on!
The rest of the evening was spent doing more needed clothes shopping and hitting the craft store for supplies. We ate at Chick-Fil-E for lunch and Burger King for dinner. Are you cringing? I know, the grease and the fat and the chemicals, but it was just one of those crazy days. I must admit though, I love those old-fashioned milkshakes and fast food french fries.
During my time sitting there watching the games (you know, when I wasn’t asleep), I was thinking to myself how much money and time gets spent on athletics for these young kids. Why is that? Do we honestly think that most of these kids will play college or go pro? Statistics would appear to not be in their favor. There are these places that train your kid to be a better athlete by working on strength, speed, and agility and charge a lot of money for their services. Personal trainers are hired. Diet is manipulated. Friends turn into enemies over competition between their children.
Athletics for our kids provide a variety of positives: competition, learning to play on a team, confidence boosting, physical activity, and, you know, the “socialization”. My kids love this environment so I assume we’ll proceed as long as it benefits them, and they enjoy it. My guess is that they’re not going to play in the NBA, but I do believe these activities will help them in pursuing their career paths and shaping their character.
Shoe shopping in the middle of soccer practice
Today, we finally got out and did some much-needed spring shoe shopping. Online shopping never works well for us. The day went something like this..
Taught all day followed by looming at the instructor’s house. We rushed home to change clothes to then fly to soccer practice. Left one kid at soccer practice to rush to the shoe store that was 30 minutes away with the other 3 to hastily purchase some shoes. After that, we rushed back to soccer practice to pick up the fourth kid. Flew home to grab a bite to eat, then rushed to an indoor soccer tournament. We got home around 10:30 tonight. The pool guy called me in the middle of us buying shoes and said, “Oh, good for you. You’re out having a great time shopping.” I explained that this was not at all relaxing to me. The greatest thing was that I could cross off of my list the large task of buying shoes for the kids. I’m in desperate need of spring shopping for myself,but who in the world knows when that’s going to happen. Tomorrow, I get to spend the day at a lacrosse tournament. Just checked the weather. It’s supposed to start raining mid-way through, and I’ll have all 4 kids with me! No sitter’s available, all the family is in the south, and hubby’s working. Doesn’t that sound like another relaxing outing for me? Now, where’s the Calgon?
You should have a big set of kahones! Oh, my..
My oldest son plays lacrosse. He was somewhat upset when I picked him up from practice the other night. He stated that his teammate kept making an illegal move that was causing bruising and bleeding on his leg. He said he told his teammate to cut it out but the guy kept hitting him.
So, at that point in our discussion, I said, “Okay then, you hit him back!”
Was I wrong in my advice? I’m not sure. I wrestle with this concept, especially with boys. How do you balance teaching them to turn the other cheek, tolerance, etc vs standing up for themselves, defending their beliefs, debating with confidence, etc.
Maybe I’m making a mountain out of a mole hill. After all, we’re talking about a lax practice. But, I tend to look at these experiences and then apply them to the real world. Life lessons, their development into adulthood.
At this point, here’s what I believe:
You should have a large set of kahones to make it in this world.
You should be able to defend what you believe in.
You should be able to protect yourself.
You should be able to defend this country.
Right??
I welcome advice on this subject, especially from you parents who’ve raised boys into men! I may look back at this later and realize I was wrong-we’ll see…
Ivy League Homeschooling 