It's The Talk that begins between my husband and I, then bleeds over into a Formal Dinnertime Conversation Topic with our youthful charges. It's the obsessive scrutinizing, the sleep depriving agonizing, the pros and the cons and the trade offs and the ups and the downs and research and the people we know who do and the people we know who do not and those we know who have at one time, but stopped and those we know who didn't always then started and those we know who do some and don't others. It's the flurry of conflicting viewpoints that collide, obliterating each of my individual brain cells into tiny bits of squishy grey mush. Oh wait - they were already...never mind.
It's The Great Homeschool Debate.
Like lice on an Egyptian's head, it plagues me. Especially when times are tough. For instance, when my hunk o burnin handyman love opts to take some vacation time to completely gut and remodel a once 1/2 bath/powder room and transform it into a Grade A bathroom for our 4 growing-in-age-and-stink boys, with a shower! A shower that wasn't there before! Um...plumbing. Need I say more?
The man worked dawn to beyond dusk for 10 solid days, through 2 weekends and I tried to carry on per usual routine. I really did. The wee munchkins and I sat obediently at the table for school like we always do. We plowed forward through the banging and hammering and nailing and compressing and the dreadful mess strewn about the house because construction is, above all, untidy. (Have I ever properly expressed my undying affection for All Things Tidy?)
We pressed on though my poor wits had long ago reached their harried end. I was stressed. Ladies, do you hear me when I say that as much as I adore that useful groom of mine, I wouldn't have minded his copious talents being used elsewhere? Say, at his place of employment. Where he has his domain and I am The Unchallenged Queen of my Castle all the way up until 5:00 p.m. Not that he was trying to challenge me in any way. He was just here. All the time. Up in my BIZNESS. Trying to HELP when I became FLUSTERED by STEPPING into my REALM. Bless his sweet, helpful soul.
It didn't prove to be our finest adventure in homeschooling. It prompted the gut wrenching endeavor I face every year anyway, bathroom project or not. Would we all be better off if we place those naughty little buggars in school? Would I be better? Would they be better?
It's something to really consider.
I tossed and turned and made inquiries and fretted long and hard over it, as I always do. My angel of a 13 year old darling daughter and I talked....and talked....and talked, weighed the options, discussed the opinions, thought it through to the best of our abilities until our heads were swirling ambivalent.
In the end, though no right or wrong answer would ever present itself clear as there is simply No Such Thing, I just could not get a sense of peace over the notion that school-away-from-home was the way for us to go at this particular juncture. The thought of it was, still, more than I could bear. It didn't fit with the longing of my heart and the desire of my bones to teach them and to learn with them and to be with my babes most of the hours of most of the days, through the thick and the thin of the mess and the chatter and the attitudes and the breakthroughs and the banging of the heads on the walls and the spontaneous laughter that erupts serving to deepen my crow's feet.
Though next time, I will formally decree:
Dad's Home Project = Kid's School Vacation
Because really, who are we kidding? This is Mama's House.
Dude's amazing. Seriously. I love him so much!
I tossed and turned and made inquiries and fretted long and hard over it, as I always do. My angel of a 13 year old darling daughter and I talked....and talked....and talked, weighed the options, discussed the opinions, thought it through to the best of our abilities until our heads were swirling ambivalent.
In the end, though no right or wrong answer would ever present itself clear as there is simply No Such Thing, I just could not get a sense of peace over the notion that school-away-from-home was the way for us to go at this particular juncture. The thought of it was, still, more than I could bear. It didn't fit with the longing of my heart and the desire of my bones to teach them and to learn with them and to be with my babes most of the hours of most of the days, through the thick and the thin of the mess and the chatter and the attitudes and the breakthroughs and the banging of the heads on the walls and the spontaneous laughter that erupts serving to deepen my crow's feet.
Though next time, I will formally decree:
Dad's Home Project = Kid's School Vacation
Because really, who are we kidding? This is Mama's House.
Before:
After:
Dude's amazing. Seriously. I love him so much!
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