OK so picture this...a calm morning with the birds singing the house warm and cozy, breakfast is over dishes are tucked neatly into the dishwasher. A beautiful young women holds a toddler in her lap while she diligently walks an even more beautiful curly haired kindergartener though the days math lesson, all the while there is an inquisitive four year old sitting quietly doing a puzzle to which he inadvertently is learning his ABC's in a near by kitchen chair. All is calm and perfect for learning. Through out the morning lessons abound, fun it had, and light bulbs are flicking on in these young children's mind, as the mother smiles on happily knowing she is doing a wonderful job teaching her offspring.
Yeah that is SO not my house! My homeschooling experience is going more like this...
Haggard mother wakes up and her first thought is "Oh Crap, it's morning!" She knows this fact because there is already two not so tiny bodies piled like cord wood on top of her bouncing her awake. "Come on mom, we need to EAT!!!!!!" She tries to block out the annoying comments that put certain death to her alone time, but nothing can stifle the screeches coming from the caged animal what sometime camouflages itself has a very lovely baby girl in the next room. OK she is up she is moving. She is on a roll...the savages are feed, the beds are made, the proper clothes semi in place. Hour one, and everyone is still breathing. As the small minions destroy the living room with every toy in their arsonal, she sits and uses this small moment of time to once again go over the lessons for the eldest and her military type game plan to keep the other two at bay. She takes a deep breath and squints her eyes and winces as she says "time for school".
At that moment all Hell breaks out! The leader of this pack finds anything and everything to keep herself from doing the task at hand. The baby has in a split second (well really the time it takes to teach the sound of the letter A)opened every drawer and cabinet in the kitchen and spewed forth all the contents on to the floor to which the four year old (who has been running around turning every radio on in the house, full blast I might add) trips and falls and has proceeded to wail like his leg has just been severed. All the while she is trying to get her voice to reach an ungodly level to make her explanation of how a rain cloud is formed heard. Yes there are time when she is thinking that those sound proof rooms that they use on game shows might not be a bad idea for domestic use, but do they make them strong enough to contain the combined energy and force of a tornado and hurricane? Huh she will have to look into that...
Anyway, as she was day dreaming the sweet loving four year old is laying on the floor rolling back and forth holding his stomach saying " I can't move, I am so hungry my legs don't work...or my hands or my feet!...I think I am dying...MOM I AM HUNGRY!" In between sentences of the Boxcar Children she assures him lunch is not far off, when she looks down and he has a small buddy join him in his plea...but since this buddy has not yet mastered the art of speech she just lays and moans, back and forth back and forth, moaning like she hasn't been fed in all her 1 1/2 years on earth. Once the chapter is finished and most of the tasks for the day are checked off the menacing pages in the elephant size 3-ring binder, she says "Alright, you guys go outside and play while I get lunch."
Funny thing happens when those words are spoken...they run like escaping captives for the door screaming "I LOVE RECESS!" She left alone if only for a moment to take inventory and regroup for the next attack. As she puts the small ones down for a nap and finishes up a few of the last little things with the mastermind. As she tries to poke around this little brain for some glimmer of hope that she actually retained some of the material from the chaos that was the morning, the questions are answered with blank stares and shoulder shrugs. "OH CRAP" seems to resurface in her mind...She continues to think this while pondering the point of it all. That is until said women's husband comes home and interrogates the retention of the material learned that day and the once unknowing child all of a sudden is the next Einstein and can recite almost every word that was spoken including some that weren't :) The boggled mother just shakes her head, sighs, and rushes away to once again keep the baby from eating out of the garbage...
Yeah, somehow I can relate to the second woman...huh.
