You're A Grand Old Flag

Monday was rough. Truth be told, so was Friday. I didn't really want to blog about it, but I guess that is life; we all have bad days. I might as well be honest about it and tell it like it is. Not every day is filled with unicorns and glitter. Friday and Monday were filled with bad attitudes, temper tantrums, time-outs...and it wasn't just the kids. There was also very little work done, which made me quite thankful that we are so far ahead.

The difference between homeschooling and when my daughter was in public school is that now I take it very personally when things don't go so well, or when we all just seem to have major attitude problems all on the same day. I fear failing. This is new territory for me, and my confidence can take a hit pretty easily at this point.

Fortunately, today was better. No, today was great. It was the perfect antidote to a lousy few days, and I'm feeling confident once more as my smiling children - who worked diligently all morning and got heaps of work done - are sitting on the floor with crayons busily working on some Halloween coloring pages I found online. Since Little G finished his Math workbook last week and completed all of the remaining Kindergarten Phonics as of today, I have been finding and printing first grade Math and Language Arts worksheets for him. He devours them, especially the themed ones. I've found a surprising amount of fun Halloween Math worksheets.

Daddy recently brought home some miniature flags, which the kids had lots of fun waving as we sang some history-related songs from our curriculum. I've heard You're A Grand Old Flag about 40 times today, but it's all good. They marched around waving their flags and dancing, laughing, being silly.

It was such a contrast to the past few days, like a switch was thrown. The only thing I can figure is that maybe the bright sunshine affects their moods as much as if affects my own.

I talked to my grandma for a little while last night, which almost always means I feel better about life. When I told her about some of the struggles of the previous days, she said, "That's why I think I couldn't have done it. Parents don't have the same authority. No, maybe that's the wrong word. Kids will test parents in ways they won't test teachers. With teachers, there is the unfamiliar, the unknown." And she's right. Well, about the testing part. I believe my grandma can and could do just about anything, and homeschooling is no exception. But yes, and I have even said to Reezle, "Would you be acting like this with Mrs. J?" The answer is invariably "no". And there you have it. But it's simply a different set of challenges than we would face in a bricks and mortar school. And frankly, I'm cool with these challenges. With the bricks and mortar school? Yeah, not so much.