Day 40

I've been wanting to say more than just what we're doing for school in my blog posts. You know, say something insightful, make a comment about life as a homeschooler. So tonight I asked my kids what they thought I could say something about. I don't think anyone had any ideas for me, but we fell into our usual late-night talk around my bed. So I had to laugh when Sarah said something like this, "Something's been getting on my nerves. Maybe I shouldn't mention it because it's about parenting and I'm not a parent, but it really bugs me when people sit in church and fuss with their toddlers. It just gets the kid going and they have to take them out in the hall, and everybody's crazy."

Then we recalled times when we have heard parents telling their kids to stop talking during the prayer, but they're doing it DURING the prayer! We decided it would be less distracting to others to just set the example of not talking during the prayer.

Just model the behavior! I know it's not completely foolproof, but generally it works pretty well. It works amazingly well at my house. For example, I hate doing dishes and I often leave them to do later until we run out of dishes. My kids are masters at following my example. You can imagine. Or how about staying up late? None of my kids have decided they need to get to bed and just gone. No way! No one ever goes until I go. Or if I watch movies all day, they are not about to do school no matter how much they know they need to. But just as often, they're doing good they've seen us do too.

So staying aware of the example we set is critical. There, that's my comment on life.

Today, I explained a lot of math to everyone, they all picked books for a quickie book report, and the girls took science tests while Sam was preparing for the one he's taking in the next day or two. Sarah got an 89% and she wasn't too happy with that. I think I've mentioned before how funny they are about grades--because I couldn't care less about that. So then Rachel came in and said she got an 89% which made her perfectly happy. It's all about point of view, isn't it?

Tomorrow, we're going to paint again. I'm pretty sure this will be the last time, and we can clean up and get ready to put in carpet or have the floor refinished. I wonder which one is cheaper. Maybe I'll get a picture when we're done and post it tomorrow.

See you then!