Post-Convention thoughts: The madness
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
So we get home with the kids’ new loot, and my #2 and #3 kids want to start school. As in– now. Kid #1 is a boy, so I don’t have to explain that he’s up in a tree somewhere.
“No,” I protest, “Wait until it’s really time for school. We’re on summer break, remember?” Holy smokes, folks. I just finished out the year last week. Cut the Proverbs 31 lady some slack, eh?
“But we want to do our new books today, please? Please?!!!” If I would’ve trained my children properly, they would’ve replaced their constant begging with “May-I-make-an-appeals” but you already know we fall short.
I don’t want them to crease their brand new books. I want to begin the next year… sometime around next year. I want to sharpen pencils, have color-coded dividers, and laminate their bookmarks. Only in a homeschool house do you have the kids begging to do school, while the crazy mom yells, “No! No, no, no! You will NOT do school.” Let me paint my toes, reaffirm the battle cry against secular humanism, grab a bon-bon— and please-for-goodness-sakes, let’s have a summer vacation.
It did occur to me that my thinking was utterly ridiculous. So, we took the early morning off, and the girls broke in their new books by lunchtime. We did go swimming later that evening, though.
Also seen lugging uncreased books around, the delightful Homeschool Blogger community meets up in the food court:

I wore “the infamous shirt” for easy identification purposes. It worked. The Old Schoolhouse gave me a new Homeschool Blogger t-shirt in sympathy.

9 Comments
RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI
Leave a comment
« Previous: Post-Convention thoughts: The Method
Next: I won’t say what this is about »
Return Home
this post made me smile
I love the way you write! and I have to say, when I saw the first picture, my first thought before I read the sentence below it was, “hey, she’s wearing that shirt again!”
wanted to follow up and say that I hope you didn’t read my comment below as critical. from your response I realized it probably could have come across that way, though it wasn’t intended to. ambiguity in tone is the frustrating thing about blogging! I’m simply coming from the perspective of not having grown up with any homeschool exposure whatsoever, and over the past couple of years as I’ve been getting to know more and more families who do it, trying to understand how they do things.
Comment by Amy (May 31, 2006 @ 4:39 pm )
Amy,
My kids do the exact same thing when I get home from a homeschool convention/conference! Ditto what you said about the kids wanting to do more school and only in a homeschool would you have the mother saying, “NO!” We also have the problem of my children wanting to be involved in Mommy’s day off (at the conference!), my 9yo actually wants to go to the conference with me and be a part of the book buying decisions! Ugh!
In need of a little body space,
Amy
Comment by Amy Howard (May 31, 2006 @ 4:53 pm )
Amy, No problem. My quick response wasn’t intended to communicate that the comment irked me. I realize it was an honest question, and I often don’t take time to elaborate in the comment box, just due to time constraints. I hope you’ll visit often, as I write often of the “dailyness” of our life here. It should give you a good picture of what homeschooling looks like for us here in FL. Blessings and thanks for the note.
Comment by Amy Scott (May 31, 2006 @ 4:55 pm )
Ack, Amy Howard wrote in while I was writing to the first Amy. Hope it all makes sense. From…Amy
Comment by Amy Scott (May 31, 2006 @ 4:57 pm )
can i just say again how incredibly *cute* your kid is? i find most babies, um… not so incredibly cute, but yours is truly a model of baby cutefullness.
signed a non-Amy
Comment by JenIG (May 31, 2006 @ 8:28 pm )
I’m so jealous that you both got to meet! I just love you both (at least your blogs). I also have a friend that wants to visit NASA and she lives in your area (although she says she’s afraid to homeschool and doesn’t think she can handle it). I have been meaning to email you to hook you and her up, but it slipped my mind. Glad I popped in! Email me off list if you are interested in meeting up with her. She has 2 girls that are 7 and 9.
Comment by sprittibee (June 1, 2006 @ 12:14 am )
You’re a hoot! I’m thinking it’s flouresant orange toe paint, am I right?
Comment by Tim (June 1, 2006 @ 8:46 am )
Amy,
My son did that too when I got home. So I guess we’re doing Spanish this summer. Thank God it’s somewhat self-teaching and I just have to be there and do the fun hands-on stuff every once in a while. It’s my vacation too (ignore me while I whine….)
Comment by Lisa (June 1, 2006 @ 9:44 am )
I can’t see past the black and blue at the moment. I broke another toe again today.
As many times as you want, Honey!
Comments like those get preferential treatment.
Comment by Amy Scott (June 1, 2006 @ 3:45 pm )