Reality check

Okay, it's about time to get real.  In the past, I've mentioned that homeschooling is tough. Maybe what I should say is that it is probably one of the most challenging things I've ever done.  I'm not a wimp.  I was a Marine (although they say you never stop being a Marine).  I went to college. I've had my fair share of challenges in this lifetime.  Nothing really prepared me for this though.  Some days I feel like I need anger management classes.  It's only been a month.  I keep telling myself that and pray that things get better.  I am not a quitter and I keep reminding myself why I decided to do this in the first place.  I am still hanging in there.

So what makes it so tough?  Well, perhaps it is a 6 year old that doesn't want to cooperate 99 percent of the time, even though he promises he will do what I ask before I tell him what we're going to do.  I know he has definitely inherited my temper.  Not a good thing.  I keep telling him we need to control it before you regret it.  I am sure it is difficult for a kid, any kid, to suddenly see their home turn into their school.  I get that.  I just need to keep telling myself that things will be alright.  I pray he will come around one day, soon hopefully, and start working with me.  When he does work with me, I think he does an awesome job.  He is learning and I love seeing him learn.  We even did some art this week. (Yay!) It was nice to see him want to bring something he learned to what he considers "fun" stuff.  He painted a few pictures, fall themed mainly because it is getting pretty fall like here. The last picture he said was Mt Vesuvius, which we learned about when we did our volcano study last month.  So, there is some good that came out of the week.  I'm am trying to take something good out of each week.  This week was just harder to find the good because when it was bad, it was hard to see the positive.  I am not one to cry but I nearly did this week.  I do not want to fail.  I truly believe this is what is best for my kids.  I just have to find more ways to show Josh that learning can be fun and that it doesn't have to be torture for both of us.

Another thing that makes this new challenge so tough at times is that I often feel alone in this venture.  My days are filled with trying to get lessons in and take care of everything else around here as well.  I see people doing amazing things in their free time like canning and going on adventures.  I haven't figured out yet how to encompass stuff like that into our days.  We did have a garden and I currently have an abundance of tomatoes but I don't have the time to do much with them.  I did make some awesome salsa though, if I do say so myself!  We also hope to one day meet some other homeschooling families, which we still haven't done.  I think that would give both Josh and I something positive.  I feel the need for support from those who understand what it's like and I think Josh would like someone to spend time with that is going through a similar schooling experience, as well as perhaps make a good friend or two.  So perhaps that is in our future to look forward to.  I guess we need to take things one step at a time. Left left left right left! Keep step via Marine Corps style!

This coming week I am going to try mixing it up more. Try to make things more fun. I am not sure how I'm going to do that yet.  This experience is definitely testing my creativity.  Steve and I are trying to come up with a game to make his fluency reading more fun for him, perhaps make it seem less like work.  I am going to continue with a couple things I started this week.  Writing is one thing that he seems to think is sheer torture.  So we are trying some new things with that.  On days when we get done early, we are going to try doing art or some other fun thing.  We are also going to try doing some field trips before the weather gets too bad to get out. Well, that's the plan, Stan. I will keep pushing ahead, going forward.  Quit is not in my vocabulary, unless I am telling Josh to quit the whining.  (Side note on that word "quit".  When Josh learned that word in reading a couple of weeks ago, he immediately told me he was done with our lesson! I knew that was a bad one to teach a kid who did not want to be doing reading.)