Day 95--You Just Can't Say Anything!

It's 11:15pm, and the kids are very talkative tonight. We have a family prayer every night in our bedroom (mine and Jeff's) and after we pray, we usually have some ridiculous conversation. In fact, most of the time we have to get a bunch of talking out of our systems before praying. It was that way tonight, and they were being silly afterward. Sarah and Rachel were putting their heads together and I noticed Rachel's is bigger. So Rachel started talking about having wondered if her head was big. Then Sarah looked in the mirror and started asking if her head was small and if it would grow. You just can't say anything around here.

Rachel was researching the Mozart Effect for her project and decided not to do that, but she found some interesting things about writing and stress. We were sitting at the table doing math when she said, "Writing gives you a higher IQ."
To which Sam replied, "Then let's stop doing math!"
Ha!

Then Rachel went on to say that any writing you do helps reduce stress, not just writing about the thing that's bothering you. She told me I ought to write some fiction. I said, "I'm no good at it because I never let my characters do anything, break any rules or have any problems."
She thought for a minute and said, "The people in my new book have problems. Somebody's about to get kidnapped. But it's ok."
I can't wait to read that one!

I was thinking about having written twice as many blog posts as last year when I tried this every day thing, and I was wondering what makes the difference. I thought back to how I felt by the time I stopped last year. I had this pressure to do it every day and put pictures in and tell everything we did, blah blah blah. This time I'm willing to miss a day or so if I have a migraine or something and I just don't have to put in pictures. I know it's a little more fun with them, but I haven't been pressuring myself to have it be perfect. And I'm so much more able to do it.

I think it goes that way in life and in homeschool too. Pressure for perfection leads to burnout and quitting. I gave that up in my homeschool a long time ago. I may have even overcorrected, but at least I haven't been burnt out for a very long time. If you're finding yourself discouraged about educating your children, look to see if you're putting too much pressure on yourself or your kids. And then relax! It's worth it.

See you next week!