Little House in a Big Mess

I'm sitting here looking around my den and it's a big ol' wreck. A blanket where the kids ate snacks tonight is still spread out on the floor. Piles of books, notebooks, and papers are surrounding my chair. Laundry needing to be folded and put away is piled in a chair. And that's just the den. But you know what? I'm more at peace tonight than I've been in a long time and all of that "disorder" is just not bugging me at all right now.

After much prayer and many, many conversations last year, Lee and I decided to bring all four of the kids home for school this year. In too many ways to mention, God began to confirm that decision on almost a daily basis. Because of that, there has honestly not been a lot of stress around here as we moved toward the start of school. MY plan was to squeeze every last drop that we could out of summer and worry about school after Labor Day. (Hey, it worked fine for me as a child) But my kids had a different plan. The more books, notebooks, and school supplies that I bought to have ready for September, the more excited they became about diving in. They literally begged me to "please start teaching" them this past Monday morning. I mean, how do you say no to that? I wasn't anywhere near organized enough to do anything structured, so we called that first day a Teacher Work Day and after breakfast we just sat around the kitchen table and talked about the year ahead. I made lists of what the four of them wanted to do this year and we brainstormed some ways we could incorporate some of those things into the things that we HAD to cover. We planned what time we would get started every morning (and based on that, we set a reasonable bedtime). We talked about what a typical day would look like and then talked about how much we all wanted to have NON-typical days, too. The kids came up with field trips they'd like to take and service projects they'd like to do. If we get to do half of them, we're going to have a busy school year!

One thing that I really wanted to make part of our school time, was to read the Little House series together...... 9 books over the course of 9 months. I knew my girls would love the stories, but wondered what my boys would think. Well, Tuesday after we'd finished with our class work, we all sat in the den for me to read to them. First, I told them a few things about Laura Ingalls Wilder. It still amazes me that she didn't have her first LH book published until she was 65 years old! I read the first chapter and they all loved it. When I got to the part where "Pa" built a smoke-house out of a log and used hickory chips to smoke the meat he'd butchered, the boys were hooked. Fast-forward a few hours and we're all in Wal-Mart grabbing a few things for supper. As we walked past the meat/cheese section, the kids were SO excited to read "Hickory Smoked" on a package of bacon. They knew the process involved in making it that way. So, of course, we had to buy some for breakfast the next morning. Later that night, when I got home from a meeting, the boys couldn't wait to tell me that they'd been watching the TV show "How Do They Do It?" and it was on making a smoke-house. I mean, come on, what are the chances?

So, there you have it. 3 days in, home-educating our kids was definitely the right choice for us for now. Life is good, even if the house is messy. Now, I'm off to clean up the kitchen....... we made butter tonight! (Just call me "Ma"...... no...... don't.)