Thoughts on Week One

Scooter spoke extemporaneously in church this past Sunday. He told a story about our camping trip the day before. After a little preamble about the hustle and bustle of preparations, followed by getting lost on the way to the site, he came to the main point: weather and prayer. The dads built a fire in the pit while it was cloudy, but then it started to rain. Scooter was praying the rain would stop so the fire would burn on, and he mentioned that his prayer was answered -- it stopped raining, but then it started to hail! (Which was, by the way, beyond exciting to him. He was jumping up and down and encouraging all seven children to hurry outside to see the wonder of the hail.) Eventually, the hail turned back to rain, which then turned back to clouds. The fire managed to outlast the weather.

I'd love to just say what a great talk it was, how it made everyone chuckle, and how it impressed all the fathers and grandpas in the chapel, since Scooter speaks clearly and without fear, and was wearing suit-white-shirt-and-tie, complete with handkerchief in the outer breast pocket. Proud and pleased as I am, what I like the most is how his story perfectly describes our first week.

The first day was covered with the clouds of uncertainty; like motherhood, one can read dozens of books about homeschooling, but until you call your children to order on the first day, you have no idea what it will really be like. It was in no way a bad day, just like cloudy weather is not bad weather.

Our second day was a little rainy. Scooter was struggling with this new kind of education, which relies heavily on reading the best books ever written, and which refuses to dumb down either vocabulary or concepts for children. They take out of the stories what they will at each age, and learn more and more as the years go on. Personally, I adore this method, Animal's doing really well with it, and I believe Scooter will come to at least appreciate as time goes by. But Tuesday definitely saw a bit of rain.

Wednesday's hail? Let's just say there was a bit of arguing, and a lot of whining.

I call Thursday rainy because we were recovering from Wednesday's hail. We all came to the table a bit wary of each other, wondering if another storm awaited.

Friday's clouds were fatigue. I tend to be a lazy person and I haven't worked this hard since I was holding down three jobs the summer after my freshman year of college. Even then I didn't have a household to run and maintain on top of my jobs; my mom was running that end of things and dinner was always available if I was home to eat it.

I know this will be the best work of my life -- honestly, what work could be more important and worthwhile than raising your children to be phenomenal adults -- but it makes my life 100% different than it was before. Still, I know that first sunny day can't be far off. And stormy weather isn't necessarily bad, especially if you're like me and you love rain.