The Mess

The Mess

This week my twelve year-old daughter, who never ceases to amaze me, donated her hair again to Locks of Love.  Twelve inches, three ponytails, and this was for the third time.  I am super proud of her and can honestly say that this is all her own doing.  She has a heart that wants to serve others, and this is a tangible way she can do so.  


My daughter did not do this, because my husband and I made her do it or guilted her into it.  She did not do it as a result of my husband and I having found the secrets to success in parenting. She does not even do it just to get attention from it. It is not because she is homeschooled that she decides to do these kinds of things.  She loves God, and it is that simple. 


So, you might wonder what kind of parents are behind such an amazing young person.  I have to tell you that it is not pretty.  Though my husband and I love God and attempt to lead lives to please Him, we are far from perfect.  We are a mess.


We do not rise diligently at the crack of dawn before our children are awake to pray for hours and read the Bible before the sun comes up.  In an ideal world we'd like to, but we are a bit unconventional.  Our prayer time and devotional time happens, but it happens at better times for us.   


Though we homeschool and are pleased with how this works for our family, our children have their complaints about school.  There are tears.  Oh, and they cry, too, sometimes. ;) Our days are not completely full of the joys of learning like in all of the homeschool manuals, self-help books, and curriculum.  Our children are smart, but none of them are equivalent to Einstein in the way they function.  Our children don't all start playing beautiful instruments by the age of 3 just to start a travelling family symphony by the age of 6.  They do not always have a joyful attitude, and they have issues controlling their anger and frustration at times.  


We do not buy all of our food organic, and our children do like sweets and plenty of bad-for-you salty snacks.  There is evidence of this on our kitchen floor more times than I'd like to admit. 


We are not nearly as consistent as we'd like to be.  Their schedules are sometimes a wreck.  Our children sometimes stay up way past their bedtime.  They misbehave and have tantrums.  They pick up our bad habits.  They do weird things that don't make any sense to us, and sometimes we find humor in it while sometimes we don't.  


If you walk into our house at any given moment, especially but certainly not limited to the school year, it will be a disaster area.  There will be dust covered stuff, random food lying on the countertops, unfinished sippy cups, toys scattered on the floors, books and curriculum covering the dining room table, and dog hair on the floors.  Oh, and speaking of the dog, if he could talk... well, let's just be glad he can't.  These kinds of conditions can not be pleasant for him.  It's a good thing he loves us.


We have the tendency to multi-task more than we should, and we are not proud of it.  To generalize all of the details (so as not to bore you,) between working, schooling, cleaning, running kids to their activities, church, and volunteering our lives are full.  


Today, I was reading in a book called "Think Orange" by Reggie Joiner:

"Noah had a drinking problem.  Abraham offered his wife to another man. Rebekah schemed with her son to deceive her husband, Isaac.  Jacob's sons sold their brother into slavery.  David had an affair, and his son started a rebellion.  Eli lost total control of how his boys acted in church...Has it ever occurred to you that maybe God filled the pages of Scripture with bad parenting examples to encourage us?  I know God desires for me to be a responsible Christian parent, but my humanness sometimes gets in the way.  When I read the variety of Christian books about parenting, they often make me feel overwhelmed and guilty.  If I consider my own personality quirks, I am not sure I have it in me to be an A+ parent.  When I read the Bible, though, I am actually encouraged, and I am definitely aware that God has a way of doing something incredible in spite of my faults."  

This was encouraging to me.  My expectations of myself are much higher than I can ever possibly live up to while on this earth.  Actually Sue's Always, Never post got me thinking about this, because I can SO relate to Always, Never.  It's nice to be reminded now and then that those who came before me in my faith were pretty flawed, and yet they are in many ways considered heroes of my faith.  It helps me to lighten up and relax.  And, even though my husband and I are more flawed than we sometimes would even like to say out loud, we are a work in progress.  As we press on in this season called "parenting," we hope that we can improve some things about ourselves along the way to be better parents.  It gives us hope, though, that God is not finished with us, and that despite our inadequacies He reminds us through our children that He is working in them, too.  


~Michelle

Homeschooling Almost Got Me Arrested

Today I'm either going to confirm to all of you that at least one of us is indeed crazy for real, or give you a timely warning about the dangers of homeschooling.  Because last night I narrowly escaped being arrested, and I blame it all on homeschooling.

No, this wasn't something noble, like a protest march for the rights of homeschoolers everywhere.  I live in NJ where we have it pretty good.  And I'm not sure we care about the rights of homeschoolers everywhere.  No, this all started out a few weeks ago with a simple little traffic ticket.  And that DEFINITELY happened because I homeschool.

You see, April and May have been beyond hectic.  There's the normal push to get in those last important lessons before summer break.  There's the call of the outdoors, and children resisting that last push.  There's end of the year standardized testing.  There's planning for next school year (and co-op sessions).  There are spring sports.  (Oh man!!!! Are there spring sports!)  There are concerts and recitals and practices for concerts and recitals.  And all of this adds up to hours in my car.  With children who are not always happy to be with me in the car.

So on one of these hectic days, I was driving through a congested little town, with some major squabbling and fussing going on in the back seats, and just as I reached a pedestrian crosswalk, I noticed traffic in the lane next to the curb screeching to a halt and a tiny little old man (possibly with a cane) stepping off the curb.  I don't want to sound disrespectful about this gentleman, who might possibly take exception to the words I have used to describe him if he ever stumbles onto this blog and reads about himself, however, he was not big, which is important because I couldn't see him over the vehicles that were next to me, and in fact, I didn't see him until I was partway across the crosswalk.  Which led me to make a split-second decision, w/ a quick glance in my rear-view mirror, where I saw a big white car that appeared to be very close to me, and I decided that slamming on my brakes and stopping short might very well lead to getting rear-ended.  And really, that gentleman was not going to be reaching my lane any time in the next 60 seconds.  So I went through the crosswalk with a police car right behind me.

Yep, he pulled me over and gave me a ticket that would give me a lot of points on my license.  And told me that I should contest the ticket and the judge would change the fine to something that would not give me any points.  (Ahhhh, the joys of a penal system that makes so much sense.)  I did check w/ my girlfriend experts before I followed this advice, and called the number on the ticket to tell them I was going to contest it, and here is where my distracted, homeschooling brain once again failed me.  The lady on the other end of the line said "OK, we'll call you."  Or she might have said "OK, I'll call you."  I'm not 100% sure which it was, but I am QUITE clear about the message that I would be called.  This was such a relief to me!!  I did not have to even think about this any more until I received a call.  Hooray!  Back to the homeschool race.

And on Monday, when standardized testing was complete, many recitals and practices and sports practices/games behind me, I took a deep breath, and thought, hmmmm, nobody ever called about that ticket.  I should probably call and see what's going on.  However, I didn't, and Tuesday evening, my husband brought in the mail, which contained a legal notice.  I thought, whew, they scheduled the court date.  But those of you who actually know how the legal system works (as opposed to me, who is clearly winging it and not in a good way) know that this was not that.  Oh no.  This was a notice that an arrest warrant had been sworn out for me (FOR ME!!!!) for failing to show at my court date.  Because the court date had been put automatically on the ticket and I should NOT have been waiting for a different one.

I did not panic immediately.  I tried to call all of the numbers for the court that I could find.  Of course they were all recordings at that time of night.  Then I started to google information about arrest warrants.  I began to panic, but kept it to a minor panic since part of me realized that this was a $100 bail issue, and surely people writing those pages out in google-land were talking armed robbery.  Or drugs or something.  I sent a few messages out on the girlfriend network.  Full-blown panic set in when the girlfriend who is married to a former police officer said something along the lines of "GO. Smokin' hot husband says GO NOW to the police station and get it straightened out!!"  (No, she didn't say smokin' hot husband then, but she says it all the rest of the time, so that's why I added that.)  I appreciate that she didn't spell out "or you could spend a night in jail" but frankly, she didn't have to.  My imagination logical brain was working pretty actively by then.

Full-blown panic is not pretty.  I did make sure to shower before I left the house because if I was going to be arrested I at least wanted to smell clean and I had just done 3 miles on my elliptical.  I was quite sure that nobody shows up at a police station soaked with sweat to turn herself in.  I wondered if they would put hand cuffs on me when I had surrendered myself to the police voluntarily.  I contemplated if I should smile for my mug shot or not.  I briefly regretted watching so much Law & Order in days gone by, as it seemed to be fueling my over-active imagination.  My hands trembled a bit on the steering wheel as I drove to the police station.  Wanted Person coming off the lam to turn herself in.  (I've always wanted to be "on the lam" at least once in my life.  But it wasn't as much fun as it sounds.)

And I ended up waiting for 20 minutes or more in the police station lobby until a very nice police officer opened up the lobby window, proceeded to call me "Miss" enough times that I started to find him very attractive, and seemed pretty amused by my state of panic.  (For the record, I did not cry.)  He said several times that this was not a big deal.  I signed a couple of papers, he explained to me very clearly (Thank you, Lord! for somebody who talks to me like I am a very slow person, because I really am at this stage of the game.) when my new court date is, and I only realized later that I had signed my own bail agreement (For $0 - SURREAL!!!) In short, I was feeling pretty good until I turned to walk away and he said "Now keep those papers on you for the next few days because you still could get arrested until the system clears."  Wha . . . .?!?!

So.  There you have it.  How homeschooling is dangerous, almost got me arrested, AND proof that I am completely crazy and not that smart any more.

Although, now that I think about it, if I have a signed bail agreement, I guess I technically WAS arrested????

~Stephanie

Coffee, cleaning, teething, math...

So, this first post of mine might sum me up fairly well. My two middle daughters, almost 8 and 6 years old, told a friend that they don't do school, "we wait for the baby to cry and then sneak off, because then Mom will forget". That one might be true sometimes. The almost 8 year old asked me why i think it's ok to " sleep alllll the time". This, i can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, is not true. My almost 17 month old views NOT sleeping as a sport she would like to perfect, and most nights (days?!), i am just getting to sleep around 4:30am, and she will do a 3 hour stretch for me. Today, angels sang, as she slept 4 hours in a row! I woke up at 9:30, to the sounds of Just Dance and someone riding (ok, crashing) the baby's ride-on Mickey Mouse train into things.

But we did get school done, regardless of what the middle girls will tell people. My oldest are in 4th and 5th grade, and i will tell you i LOATHE the math. Throw almost anything else at me, i'm golden...math? No  dice. I start to sweat, and say ridiculous things ("i'm gonna find whoever invented math and punch them in the face!!!"....really? yup. I have said that.), and just generally whine until it's over. My 11 year old daughter and almost 10 year old son, sit there patiently waiting for me to calm down and stop throwing fits. Or they laugh. It's true.

On a daily basis i'm in the midst of cleaning, throwing things away when no one is looking, day-dreaming about public school (just kidding...ish), paying bills late (ok, VERY late), feeling like a zombie, worrying about not being a good Mommy or teacher, thinking about curriculum for the Fall, wondering if i am going too far if i buy myself a new broom off of Amazon.com, and trying to make a few more meals out of what we have in the fridge because i don't want to shop before the weekend.

Most days i feel like a hot mess...But i'd like to think i'm eccentric, quirky, and endearing - you know, like crazy women in movies always seem. Anyway, this is me. Coffee breath, laundry in the washer that i ran for the 5th time because i keep forgetting about it, and fingernails (and skin) painted by a 6 year old. Welcome to my life:)
~Sue