I’m writing this post on Mother’s Day as all five of my treasures are sleeping. I have a few minutes to ponder my life and my job as mom.
At times like this I see just how much we (as a homeschooling family) are getting accomplished and I feel at peace. It’s the birds-eye view of our life and school. During the daily grind, however, I often feel as if we’re spinning our wheels. We are happy Sonlight users and the Mother’s Day email I received from them today was very encouraging. If you want to read the whole thing you can click here to enjoy the entire article but the gist was that even the Israelites, on their way out of Egypt, were led along the long route. God didn’t take them home the fastest way possible, and it was for good reason. “He purposefully led them in a circuitous route because he had a more important goal for them than efficiency – in this case, he didn’t want them to lose heart.” At times like this I can sit back and accept that things take longer than they should, that we never get it all done in a day, that stomach bugs, doctor appointments, messy diapers, and bad attitudes happen, and that there will often be a need to re-cover material in order to truly grasp it. And I can relish the fact that we have the time to go at our pace in order to make sure they grasp the material. I want to check the boxes. I want to put the school year in the books. I want to put the studies away for a summer break and spend time just hanging out and playing. However, we are being led down a circuitous route and God’s intent is for me to have heart, not lose it. I need to take this birds-eye view more often.
So, as we finish our last few weeks of school (which we are supposed to have already completed) I will do my best to remember the words I’m writing now. I will try to remember that I have one shot at being the mom to my kids at THIS set of ages. I will try to remember that two very short years from now Hayden will likely be heading off on his college adventure and our home dynamics will drastically change. The window of having all five chicks in the nest is slowly closing and I need to enjoy this to its fullest. I believe I was put on this earth to be these kids’ mom. I love it. (Though I admit I’m not always patient, kind, or the most fun mom and sometimes I may not show that I love it.)
Below are some pictures that I treasure of our real life… of our kids just doing what they do.
- Anna being a bit distracting during school… Kisses for brother.
- I don’t wash the boys’ clothes. One went in to change their clothes (they had combined theirs with Parker) and brought to me this very clean, just laundered, rock. (Boulder? I placed a sharpie there to show scale.)
- Bailey mowing a difficult yard. Finished product top left. I love that the bigs are learning the value of hard work and that work=money.
- Parker showing off his toothless grin. Sort of. He was a bit grossed out by this process.
- Hayden displaying his latest drawings. On his shoes.
- Carson, not grossed out by anything, dumps fluids out of our frog.
- 6 Flags Homeschool Day. 2016 and 2017…
- Anna hammin’ it up.
- The bigs volunteering as stage hands at the local ballet. They have several friends who are absolutely beautiful and graceful dancers and it is always a pleasure to watch their performances.
And now my treasures are waking up and I want to spend some time with them before 3/5 of them head out to volunteer at the last performance of the spring season. I hope your Mother’s Day was fantastic.
thehamricks 