Mean Mommy

T is not happy with me today.

I made him do ONE page in a math book.

My kids want to know when they are getting a summer vacation. I told them "If you want a summer vacation you need to go to public school. You get a vacation every day when you don't have to go sit in an overcrowded classroom for 7 hours a day." They don't care. At this point they still don't understand how easy they have it. And, don't let them fool you. We always spend the month of July at my parents' farm with no school work in sight.

7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol. 1)

1. I just started blogging. Well I actually created this blog a year ago, but this is my first attempt to become serious about it.

2. This is my first ever foray into whatever this post is called: group posting/weekly wrap-ups/or whatever you call this Quick Takes type of post.

3. I enjoy the stay at home part of being a Stay-at-Home Mom. My kids have worn me out this week with camp, swimming, shopping and running around. That is way too much activity for us.

4. I am so excited that I rearranged our office/schoolroom. I will try to post pictures soon.

5. I love my Palm Pre. The non-conformist in me refused to buy the IPhone/Mom Phone. We are a longstanding Palm using family and it was a natural choice. I don't know any other Moms who use the Pre, but I love mine. I still wish I had my old Palm programs, like Date Book, but I am trying to get over it.

6. I am a gamer Mom. I mostly love time management type games and spend most of my monthly "blow money" buying them. I am currently trying to finish out my gold on Farm Frenzy 3: Russian Roulette.

7. We temporarily suspended our satellite TV recently. Well I tried to cancel it, but I got tired of arguing with the person on the phone and agreed to a 3 month suspension of services. We will be traveling for part of the summer and I am tired of using TV as a crutch to entertain my kids. I am currently listening to them nicely play together. So, as much as I love TV myself, sometimes you just have to take a drastic step to jolt yourself out of complacency.

Underestimating Myself

Homeschooling wasn't anything I ever inspired to do. Years ago I would have said it was crazy talk; but as I embraced parenting I also embraced an alternative lifestyle of attachment parenting, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, people calling you crazy and the like. As a part of that life I began to familiarize myself with many things, including homeschooling. As with most things, as I understood and educated myself on the issue it began to make a lot of sense. Well, a lot of sense for other people. I became a supporter of homeschooling, but I still understood that this was not my path.

Of course fast forward a few years and I am now a reluctant homeschooling Mom. Yes, after 2 years I still consider myself reluctant. Sure I like to buy all the curriculum, school supplies and hang out with the kids but overall I would describe myself as a struggling teacher. I do it because I know that for my son, a classroom environment is a non-learning environment.

Today I had a small epiphany. I have been organizing our office and schoolroom and I came across some schoolwork from the previous school year (2008-2009). All of a sudden it dawned on me that I have been homeschooling for 2 years. I successfully schooled my son through the 1st and 2nd grade! Wow, that suddenly just seemed so huge to me. I did that. I did all the work, research, buying, selling, planning, teaching,arguing, listening, day in and day out everything! It's amazing how much clearer things look when you aren't treading water and trying to take a peak.

Yikes! A Year has passed.

I can't believe it has been a whole year since I posted. Well, actually I can. When I started to blog last year I got really overwhelmed. I have perfectionist tendencies so when I can't accomplish something to meet me own standards, I just don't do it. That is what happened with my blog. So one of my good friends has been blogging alot lately and she has inspired me to log back on. Really just the fact that she is creating a virtual scrapbook of her homeschooling life is inspiration. I know I will not remember these times if I don't make note somewhere so a blog seems like a perfect place.

Actually, this very blog is a great reminder of how fast the memory fades. I am reading back on the end of our first year of homeschooling and I had forgotten how burnt out and stressed I was. I would say that this past year, our 2nd of HS, has been so much better. I am sure I have forgotten many of our stressed days and I know I wanted to send Sister to school, but we made it! My first year of teaching both of them and we survived. Adding M to the mix was difficult. She is much more high needs than T and needs WAY more outside stimulation. T and I are both introverts and happy to stay home the majority of the time. M wants to go several places in one day. Yikes! I am still trying to balance the personality differences, but I am hoping once I get M more involved in school she will have less time to whine.

So my goal for now is to blog more without adding more pressure to myself. Next time I will post an update of our past school year. And, oh yeah, I am going to challenge my friend and see if she can find this blog all on her own?? Ok, I am sure she will find it, but how long will it take?