I know stress is all around us, and there is really nothing you can do about it.  I'm stressed and with good reason. I am a wife, mother, sister and daughter. Also this is the week my mother passed away one year ago. Well this weekend is. I just want the yelling and picking on each other to stop. I'm on edge and I think that attributes to my children being ...what? They are just being kids.

      What do I need to do to have peace in my house? Any suggestions? Anyone!? Please feel free to comment. I mean I'm dealing with two 5year olds. One a boy and one a girl. So I have all kinds of emotions going on with both sexes. They are both very strong willed children(yeah they got that from me and their grandmother and her mother before her). I try not to argue with them. I try not to let it be a ego thing. With the “because I'm the mom and I said so”. It's hard to reason with a 5 year old sometimes. I've read a few books and a lot of websites and blogs from other unschooling families. Like trying to put into practice letting them watch me do things for others and then they will want to help other people. Which they do do that.

      I said they yell, that's because I yell and their father yells. We have to stop yelling if we stop they will stop. I try to be conscious of this. I try to talk and not yell when we have a conflict. I think if I'm speaking in a softer voice and they are being loud it will force them to be quiet to hear what I'm saying. Sometimes this works. I just want us to be happy all the time. I know that's a dream I'm waiting for. Okay relative happiness. Is it possible to stop a fight before it happens? Is it possible to get the bickering to stop? If I'm calm they will be calm?

       Since we have started unschooling I feel like we are constantly going. Maybe I just need to take some time and just be with my kids. Sure we can still do some fun activities with our friends, just not as many as we have been doing. I need to set the example of how I want them to be. How do I want my children to act? I don't want them to follow my bad habits. I want them to follow my good habits and good example. This is going to take work. I know,I have children that means work and stress.

       This weekend we are going to my sisters. I am very excited to be leaving it will be almost a month since we have seen each other. When she lived closer we would visit either every week or every other week. So not being able to see her for a long stretch of time is like going through withdrawal.
        This is also a special weekend for us. It's a year this weekend that our mom died. So it's even more important to me that we spend this weekend together. I'm so glad that we can be together for this weekend. It would be really hard to bear knowing that we were apart and dealing with this alone. Not that we are alone we have our respective mates, but it's not the same as being with your sister. So we are going to spend a fun weekend together remembering mom, going shopping and site seeing out to dinner and just being with our family. 
         That also makes this week a busy week for me, getting laundry and luggage together. Shopping for things to keep the kids occupied in the car. I know we are only going for a short visit, but I have a tendency to pack everything but the kitchen sink. I am trying to be “Less is best”. but that's hard I learned to pack from the master(my mom). We'll go have fun my husband will get a chance to see my sisters new place and we can just relax. I know my mom wont be with us physically, but it will feel like she's with us in spirit.

        Since I started writing this blog I have never addressed why I chose to homeschool or unschool as we are slowly evolving into. It's kinda funny actually I had every intention of putting my children in preschool and on through elementary. It wasn't until we took them for preschool enrollment when the administration told us how much preschool was going to cost. Almost $3,000.00 for the two kids plus as I talked to the teacher she told me about all the things they would be doing and I thought I would love to do some of those things with my kids. Why should I allow someone else to do these things when I can spend time growing and learning with my kids. I realized right then and there I wanted to be the one to teach them about all the wonderful mysteries of the world. I wanted to be the one that they ask why or how come to. I wanted to watch them continue to grow without the pressures and constraints that school puts on you. I told my husband and he said well give it a try for preschool and we will see how the year goes.

        So I started doing research online, and at the library. I have some girlfriends that homeschool their children, so I picked their brains of any information that they would give me. One of my girlfriends homeschooled in her highschool years and was getting things together to homeschool her children. She told me of the Charlotte Mason curriculum and Five in a Row. So I started with those to give me an idea of how to get started. I will tell you I went gung ho with doing “School at home” and I had us super scheduled and then my mother had a stroke so there went my schedule. I was running back and forth from hospital to home dropping the kids off at friends and family, that we really didn't have much time for scheduled schooling, and then my mom past away and school went out the window. I didn't start up trying to get back into a schedule until the early spring and by that time I realized how much they had learned without me doing any real workbook type schooling. They had learned so much in such a short span of time from me and friends and family playing games with them and reading books and doing pictures and projects. I decided to be a little more relaxed and less structured in our schooling. I read a lot of John Holt and Mary Griffith and Mary Hood. I loved the story about Allison Mckee and her family. Sandra Dobbs website and many other unschoolers have given me so much information. It is truly life learning being an unschooler.

        Now we are in our second year of unschooling or life learning. We have done so much already they have other homeschool kids that they get with. Our library has some wonderful programs with story times and projects. We are very busy in our community doing volunteer work and the like. I will say you really have to be a participant in your childs learning as a homeschooler or unschooler. This is not for the lazy parent. If you want your children to thrive you have to be involved. Somedays it's hard to be a mom staying at home with little people, but we have our good days and bad days like anyone else. I will say there is no other place I would want to be than with my kids and watching them learn and grow and see their faces light up when they realize they understand a new concept. For our family unschooling is the best way of life for us right now.

 

 

       I'm sitting here this morning looking at all of my family eating waffles together. The key word being together. Tim has the day of for Veterans Day. If the kids were in school they would have missed this occasion to spend the morning with their dad and have a simple waffle breakfast. I love that about unschooling. All the different opportunities they would miss out on if they were in school. They get a chance to see and do a lot of things with a lot of different people. Things that they will be doing themselves when they are older and on their own. They will be able to say oh yeah we know how to do such and such or we know who to ask about this or that because when we were young we were with our parents or grandparents or a good friend who took us with them to do those very things.

       Now today they will be able to spend the rest of the day playing games, reading books,or watching movies with their dad because he had the day off and the kids don't have to worry about missing any school or attendance issues. I love waffles!!

I know what's the point in having a blog if you are not going to post on it.  Well it has been a busy couple of weeks.  So let's get caught up.

      Last weekend I finally got a chance to visit my sister at her new place in Columbus, OH.  It was girls weekend, all of the women in the family spent the weekend at my sisters house.  There was ten of us  all together.  We had a  good time.  We left about 5:30pm on Friday and got in around 9:00pm not to bad for our first trip to a new place.  We had of course a series of crazy events before we could get there, like all of our luggage not fitting and people and car seats not fitting, food flying all over the place.  We finally got settled and was on our way.
     Misty's place is great.  It is an older home early 1900's.  There is a lot of living space.  Three bedrooms and a great fireplace in the livingroom and beautiful moldings throughout the whole house.  The house does need some work because it is and older home.  The old owners which happend to be my brother-in-laws sister did do some major updating but there is still a lot of work to be done in and on the house.  My sister also has a lot of unpacking to do still.  
      Well let's get down to what we did.  After finally getting to sleeplate Friday night.  In the morning my sister and I snuck out of the house and she took me to one of our favorite places.  The library.  Her public library is huge because it is in the city.  The halflings are going to love spending time there when we come back for a visit.  Next she took me to this little confectioners store just a few blocks from her home.  Oh my Lord this place was wonderful.  They make the best sweets.    These little things I forgot what they are called but it just melted in your mouth. The flavors of these sweets were wonderful.  Then we went back to her house to pick up the rest of the group and headed out to breakfast and then the Columbus museum of art.  They had some sort of program going on with the college so we were able to get in free.  It was a really nice museum.  The art was wonderful.  Impressionist, a whole kids section which Iza loved.  We got to dress up in old gowns and make lithographs, we put together azetec art.  We saw specimens of butterflys and pythons.  About two hours into it the little people were starting to get restless.  So we left got a snack and headed to the park so the kids could run off some of their energy.  About an hour later we went back to Misty's and some people just hung out while others took naps before dinner.  We were supposed to go to Cheescake Factory for dinner unfortunatly because of our big group it would have been a three hour wait.  So we ended up going to Chipotle.  Which was fine with most of us.    After that we walked around and shopped in this huge shopping center.  Then we went to our favorite place Target and shopped some more.    We got back to Misty's a little late so we  sat around and talked and watched a movie.  Then we went to bed.  
    The next morning we all got a slow start.  Misy woke up sick.  Iza was sniffeling and coughing.  We had decided to not go to the Sunday meeting, but after we had breakfast we all were rushing around trying to get dressed to get to the meeting on time.   
     When we got to the hall the meeting hadn't even started yet.  It was a nice Kingdom Hall.  Everyone was so friendly.  I met a lot friends.  Misty and Michael should feel real at home at that congregation.  After the meeting we went back to Misty's and packed up all of our things and got lunch then headed on home.  It was a short weekend, but a long weekend too. 
       I can't wait to go back to see my sister.  It will be nice to go just the four of us as a family next time.  We didn't get to see as much as we had liked.  We will have a little more time next time and not as many people to decide what and where we are going.  I'm glad everyone was able to go though.