When my kids were little and homeschooling was just about play and reading aloud I read a couple of books with essays telling a day in the life of different families. I could not imagine how our life would go when my kids were older. I liked reading about other people's families and wondered what our life would be like in the future.
Today over my morning coffee I read Twitter and a mom with young kids said she was enjoying a cup of coffee alone in a comfy chair while the house was quiet. I realized then that homeschooling can change so much. For me that's a common thing now. Wow, our family life has changed.
I was thinking about writing up a day in our lives but honestly it would probably bore you. Here are some snippets that tell a lot but aren't a blow by blow description.
I basically shift back and forth all day, multitasking. I go from trying to de-stress by reading Twitter and Facebook while my kids do independent learning on their computers such as Khan Academy math for the sixth grader and Thinkwell online curriculum for the ninth grader. You may think I'm wasting time but some web surfing is helping to save my sanity.
Later I check email and juggle all of that. I get emails from the sport team asking for food sign-ups and editing the calendar when robotics changes a drop off time.
My kids serve themselves breakfast when they are hungry. Both are rebelling against the idea of eating when they first wake up. I'm not going to fight that battle.
The kids have a list of work to do in a day and they can pick and choose what they do and when. It starts when they wake up. I check the list as the day goes on. They stop and eat snacks and lunch, then they go back to working.
This year my kids are doing a lot of independent work. They are reading, which takes time of course. They are doing online work such as math and keyboard skill practice. I am making them do a cursive penmanship workbook on paper. These things do not need my direct oversight.
As always I do not play the TV or any music during the day. I keep it quiet as the kids need quiet to do their lessons.
As my kids work I do a bunch of things such as write blog posts, talk on the phone to Connecticut friends about homeschooling or catch up with my parents on the phone sine we live far away now. I do house cleaning here and there, a little each day. (I don't have a house cleaner.)
My kids do most of the laundry, on days when we really need laundry done they fold clothes in between homeschool lessons to get a break from schoolwork.
I have started to cook during the day, things like roasted chicken or roast beef. While the kids are reading history, the oven is cooking away. Since sports and Boy Scouts conflicts with what I call a normal dinner time, I cook ahead and we eat leftovers. I don't have an hour at dinner time to grill chicken fresh as either I or my husband or both are rushing kids to and fro to their activities. We have been eating sandwiches at night, or salads. Lately we also make an interesting garden salad (not out of a bag) and add grilled chicken (cooked earlier in the week) to the top. We keep fresh veggies, head of lettuce, salad fixings, and fresh fruit on hand. We mostly eat protein and fresh veggies or salad for dinner. My husband's on a low carb diet so lately there is not much happening with rice or potatoes and we've cut back on eating pasta for the same reason.
My teenager eats a ton of food, it is crazy actually. My eleven year old is starting to eat more also. We have limited space in this house, so, I grocery shop 3-5 times a week. I feel like I am constantly prepping fresh fruit and veggies, peeling a kiwi, slicing an apple, or grilling up veggies. All their eating adds up to a messy kitchen and lots of dirty dishes so we run the dishwasher about every 36 hours now (and that's only with dishes, glasses and utensils).
I go back and forth during the day to do what has to be done: helping a kid with something he's learning in homeschooling, reading the community college admissions testing policy, surfing for books on Amazon.com to buy to help prepare him for the test, so forth and so on.
In between it all I try to do fun things for myself. Sometimes I'll take a five minute nature walk around my backyard and snap some photos with the iPhone4 and use Instagram to edit it and share it online. It takes just seconds but it's a fun escape.
I usually have a stack of library books I'm trying to skim or read cover to cover. I also have a basket here full of books from Amazon Vine for me to read and review. Some are duds that I just can't stand to read but really should get them read and reviewed. Every day I'm reading something that I got from Amazon Vine.
I joined a health club gym in December and have started working out. I can't find the perfect schedule yet. So far what seems to work out for what I want to do is to run to the gym while my kids are doing their homeschool lessons, for just an hour. The evenings here are a rush of taking this kid here and that kid there.
I do one volunteer job for Boy Scouts (it's required for each family to do something). I do one permanent and one temporary job for the rowing team. I have not yet found a niche in the Christian homeschool group. My husband is teaching a stock market class and I consider that volunteer work, I help with the administation of that, doing emails during the week and talking to him about some things that pop up. So I have things with volunteer work that keep me busy on weekdays in between the homeschooling or spilling over into my evenings.
Our family is close and I will not say we are one of those families where each kid and adult is living a separate life that is shared only with a few meals and sleeping under the same roof. As my kids got older they became more independent but they still rely on me to drive them here and there. Yet there is something different about life now. It is more quiet. There are no noisy toy sounds and there is no imaginative play. This temporary house has very few LEGOs in it so there is little playing with toys.
This year my 9th grader is busier than ever doing things that our family cannot particpate with. Unlike the old things we did as homeschool groups, for his school based robotics team I must drop him off. They don't want the moms peeking in and giving praise or feedback about how to improve this or that! The sport team is competitive and parents are not to attend. This means that my eleven year old is spending more time alone this year than ever before in his life. This is a shift in the family dynamic.
My sons sneak onto Facebook during the day in between hoemschool lessons or when they think I'm not looking. They like watching stuff on YouTube, silly things. I also recently found my older son snuck onto Netflix on his laptop to watch a movie during the day (this violates the no TV during the day rule).
For Christmas my kids were given Kindle Fires by their grandmother. Instead of using them primarily for ebook or emagazine reading they use them to play stupid free app games. This is the first real time they have had access to play a handheld portable video game. This larger screen is not as taxing on the eyes so we don't have the issue with the eye tracking problem that the behavioral optometrist warned me about. That doesn't mean I like the playing of the stupid games. I am unsure how sitting and watching video clips on YouTube on a laptop is different from banning real TV watching during the day. I am not sure if still banning the xBox360 during the weekdays is any different than letting them play Angry Birds or some other nonsense.
So the house is more quiet, what with kids either busy doing lessons or with them with headphones or earbuds in listening to their math in peace or watching a YouTube video of someone playing Skyrim.
On the other hand we talk a lot here with each other having real conversations. I am here and available. We have open communication. You would not believe some of the things we discuss, probably they would make some of your hair turn gray. I think it's better to answer their questions than to dodge them and keep them ignorant. We have mature discussions. Recent topics included using over the counter cold remedy drugs to get high, making me explain yet again why women bleed once a month, what rape really is, what to do if your friends offer you drugs, if sex makes babies and sex is for after marriage how can some teens get pregnant, and exactly what are genital warts like? We also discuss current events such as the shooting by an alleged bullying victim in a high school, a criticism of one of the Republican candidates that's hot news today or about a celebrity in the news who did something stupid and got arrested. We talk about song lyrics in pop music that they heard and we talk about the meaning of a song that to me is clearly about depression and suicide.
We are still in a transitional state from the move. The Connecticut real estate market remains in the crapper and our house is still for sale. The bulk of the money my husband earns pays that mortgage and the utilities. Then we have the rent and utilities and storage unit fees for the Texas residence. I have battles to do, multiple problems a week with the sale of the Connecticut house. This is in between me juggling maintenance duties on the Connecticut house and dealing with what's breaking in this rental property. Who knows when that house will sell, when we will bid on a house here and when the next move will take place!
Yes, homeschooling kids who are in grades nine and six is a really different thing from the days of meeting the homeschoolers in the park for loud games of light saber battles. It's no longer hours spend immersed surrounded by LEGO and making food together from scratch when the kids wanted to help me do every single litte thing. I have to beg them to help me now or tell them to cook what they want for themselves if they reject the good meal I'm cooking for the family.
Life is good but is is different now! My kids are growing up and getting more and more independent.