Well, I did get sick after all. But since I don’t even have time to get sick, I sure don’t have time to blog about it. So, while my immune system is artificially propped up with ibuprofen and decongestant, I have a few minutes to reflect on something I was thinking about this morning. Early this morning (which is not my best time, by the way.) But as I lay in bed trying to doze off for a few more minutes, I was trying to pray and thinking about all the things I had to accomplish in my day (by the way, in case you have ever noticed, these two things by their very nature *cannot* be done simultaneously). And so as I tossed back and forth between the two, I started thinking about the fact that this is my struggle with life in general. If you are familiar with the story in the Bible of Mary and Martha, I am definitely Martha. In the story, Jesus is visiting their home (they are sisters). Martha is running around cooking, cleaning, grocery shopping, answering e-mails, clipping coupons, chauffeuring…all while Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus and being lazy. (Oops, did I perhaps tell this in my own translation?) Now, from a right-minded, God-centered point of view, who was doing the right thing? Mary, of course. From the point of view of the Marthas of the world, those of us who realize that we would all starve and sit in filth if no one did any work, who was doing the right thing? Mary, of course…what??
I can only speak from this Martha’s point of view, but when I am confronted with what is the right choice (even when the person confronting me is myself) I can never justify that working myself to death is the right choice over sitting at the feet of Jesus. The problem is, I know that. The trouble comes with putting it into practice, when I know that the work also has to be done. Where is the balance? Is there a balance? As I looked back at the story of the two sisters (found in Luke 10:38-42) I noticed something about Martha. First, the passage never indicates that she spent *any* time at Jesus feet, it only says she was “distracted” by all the preparations that had to be made. Ouch!!! Jesus gently chided her by pointing out that she was worried and upset by many things, and then told her that only one thing was needed – to sit at his feet. I believe that Jesus was not chastising her, nor even saying that working was bad (after all, in many places in Scripture hard work is encouraged and blessed). No, Jesus was showing her the solution to her worry, distraction, and distress…simply sitting at his feet. Was he saying that the work did not need to be done? No. He was ministering deliverance to her. Jesus knew that for Martha (and for the many Marthas that would come after her) work and the care of a home and family would take such a place in her mind that it would crowd out a relationship with Him, and in doing so would rob her even of the joy of caring for her home and family.
That is the place that I find myself in, more days and more years than I care to count. I am the consummate Martha, and in continuing in that pattern instead of in the deliverance that Jesus is unwaveringly holding out to me, I am subjecting myself to the lifelong bondage of distraction, worry, and stress. And unfortunately, I am teaching my children what is most important to me. As I lay in bed and thought of all these things this morning, I prayed. Even though it doesn’t make rational sense to me, if though I don’t see how I can be less stressed by potentially getting less done, and even though I don’t even know how to go about changing….I do realize one thing. My Martha way of life has never worked for me. Maybe it’s time I go and sit at the feet of Jesus.

One child sick and asleep on the couch in my room; another sick and crying on the couch in the playroom; one recovering from sickness and finally back in his own bed after six days; another in mid-recovery but with a cough that keeps her up all night, and still another waiting in the wings, knowing that the specter of illness is hovering over her. Ah, this is one of the hardships of motherhood. The child crying on the couch “Oh, mommy…oh, mommy” because the medicine is not bringing down her fever…it is breaking my heart because I can’t do a thing except hold her. And I feel guilty…should I have taken her to that Girl Scout outing? I suspected she might be getting sick, but she so much wanted to go. And now, hours later, she is tossing and moaning.
Even Daddy is being called into service. He was going from child to child taking temperatures (only rinsing the thermometer in between – WHAT?? He says “What does it matter – they are all sick anyway?”) And so the vigil continues. I have not slept through the night in almost a week – always someone coming to my bed hot, coughing, crying…I feel like they are newborns again with all this waking. And routines – what are those? Television all day for the sick ones, and school doesn’t happen so well for the others. Some have missed co-op, some a sleep-over, and tomorrow church and a fall festival…small things in my mind compared to their sickness, but big in theirs.

I wonder idly as I am up during the night - how many people have we infected this week? All the neighbor kids have been over, we have been to the park, to the store, to church, the library, a ballgame, play practice, Girl Scouts….each of these just hours before someone got sick. And then I fret...is this the swine flu? Normally I am at least a reasonable human being, if not an under-reactor on the sickness front; but I am hyper-vigilant these days. I don’t usually take my kids to the doctor unless I know the doctor can do something for them, but if you wait too long with the flu, they can’t do anything. So I weigh whether it is worth it to make the drive and pay the copay and get a sick child out. And then what if I wait too long? Advil or Tylenol…am I supposed to rotate? If I give them medicine, they feel artificially better and then they try to do too much, but if I don’t they are miserable…what should I do? Does that cough sound like her cold-induced asthma is kicking in? Where is that old inhaler we used to have? If they are chilling from the fever, do I cover them to keep them warm, or uncover them so the fever won’t go higher? Do I feed them, or only give fluids? Why does that one throw up, and no one else does – is it some other sickness they have? Are they still contagious if their fever is gone but they still have the croupy cough? All these questions spin through my sleep-deprived head.

One thing I do know – *I* can’t get sick. I don’t have time in my schedule and besides, who would take care of everybody else? So I just medicate, and hold, and rock, and pray, and know that this will not last forever.

The “Tim Tebow” effect. If you keep up with college sports at all, you have heard of Tim Tebow, two-time Heisman trophy nominee (and the first sophomore ever to win the Heisman), starting quarterback for the Florida Gators, evangelical Christian, and homeschool graduate. My son, a rabid sports enthusiast, is a big fan (okay, we all are). Although we are historically fans of the not-so-great-this-year Tennessee Vols, we are finding ourselves secretly cheering on the Gators, in large part due to the commanding and inspiring leadership of Tim Tebow. My son’s interest in Tebow was first piqued when Tebow hit the national scene at the end of his freshman year at Florida and it was widely reported that he had been a homeschooled athlete who was allowed to play for his local public school’s football team, thus giving him the opportunity to showcase his talents as a quarterback and then go on to win Florida’s Player of the Year two years running.
The one thing that has bothered my son about homeschooling has been that he would not be able to compete in high school sports. Although we have a growing presence in our area of homeschool high school teams, we do not yet have the clout and backing to field a team that our state athletic association will recognize as an official opponent on a public or private school schedule. The story of Tim Tebow and his opportunity (and, let’s face it, his success) gave hope to my son that he could have that same opportunity. But the opportunity was afforded to Tebow courtesy of a state legislature that allows homeschooled students to compete in local high school sporting events. A 1996 Florida law specifies that homeschooled students may participate on the team of the local school in the school district in which they live. There are currently two bills pending in the state legislatures of both Alabama and Kentucky; these bills, named for Tim Tebow, would allow homeschool athletes in those states to play for their local high school teams just as Tebow did in Florida. Our state does not have any such legislation pending, so my son (who is a seventh grader) will probably not have the opportunity to play for his local high school team even if he and we want him to.
But the greatest lesson of Tim Tebow, and the one that inspires my son today, is not that of his being an excellent homeschooled athlete (although that is motivating and does give my son something to dream about). In a world where athletes are glamorized and idolized and imitated, it is refreshing and encouraging to have an athlete on the national scene that is not only morally upstanding, but who has a true heart for evangelism and missions. Tebow, the son of missionary parents, was born in the Philippines and has spent many summers there assisting his father in his orphanage and missionary work. In a recent interview with ESPN, Tebow states “My priorities in life are: Number one, my faith in God; number two, my family and my relationships with my family; number three is academics, and number four is football. You know, if those get jumbled around and you get the wrong one first, you could have a lot of problems. For me, trying to stay grounded, that’s the best way to do it, is have your priorities and try to live by them…. Through everything that I do, in football, in school and just living, I want people to see that in me. I don’t just want to be another guy who’s walking down the street… I want, when people see me, to say, “Hey, there’s something different about this guy, and that’s because he has a relationship with Jesus Christ.”
Coach Urban Meyer on Tebow: “Character? (His) character is about as good as you can have. He’s a strong Christian, he believes in all the right things, he treats women with respect, he’s a guy that you want around your family…he (has) impeccable character.”

If you’ve gotta have a hero, I’d say my son picked a good one to emulate, homeschooler or not.

Homeschool weird. I’ll never forget that phrase being said. Granted, it wasn’t directed *at* me, but still it was said *to* me. By my sister-in-law (no surprise there). We were having a conversation at a nice restaurant with my in-laws, when she brought up the ever-fascinating subject of “why in the world do you homeschool?” This was back in the days when I would still sputter out weak, defensive answers every time I was presented with this question. And my sister-in-law is not one to appear weak and defenseless around. Actually, when her first child was born she considered homeschooling for a brief time, but then came to her senses and realized that she had apparently had a temporary lapse of sanity. After that she decided that, since homeschooling was not *her* choice, it shouldn’t be anyone’s. Have you ever met someone like that? Someone who takes offense to your very private choice on how to school your kids? I’ll bet there’s not a person reading this who has not experienced that response. I have often said that I don’t think homeschooling is for everyone, and in particular not for every parent. Although I think that every child could benefit in some way from being homeschooled, when you factor their parent into the equation sometimes the risks outweigh the benefits :) Seriously, though, when I talk about my choice to homeschool, it is almost NEVER with the thought that the person I am talking to should make the same choice. Often, though, I get a defensive or angry response, as if my education choice implies that theirs is wrong. I don’t get it.

But back to the “homeschool weird” thing. After a short discussion in which she refuted all of my answers to her questions, she said, “Well, my friends and I have talked about it, and all the kids at our church who homeschool are just weird. In fact, that’s what we call them…homeschool weird.” You can imagine the defense mechanisms that rose in me. Remember, this was before I went into my disarmament phase, and was still in defense mode. I asked her to explain what she meant. She went on to describe kids who were nerdy, goofy, immature, dressed oddly, and so on. Now, you would have to know my sister-in-law to know the filter you have to use with these statements. Those kids are probably not nearly as “weird” as she describes. But let’s face it – we all know kids that are like that…they may even be *our* kids. My first (and still, I believe, pretty accurate) response was “Honey, if they are like that, homeschooling didn’t make them that way. They may homeschool *because* they are that way, but they didn’t start out as cool, social, hip kids, and become weirdos because they do math at their kitchen table rather than at a desk at school.” But days after our conversation, my response bothered me. Not because I didn’t think it was mostly true, but because I felt I had in some way betrayed those who homeschool and are the square pegs, the ones who stand out from typical society, the “weirdos.” And I did it for selfish reasons – so that my kids would not, by association, be considered “homeschool weird” themselves. I was ashamed of myself. One of the very things that I like about homeschooling – that you can be different and not have to fit into society’s idea of typical or normal – I eschewed for the very shallow desire to see my kids fit in. I had to take a hard and painful look at myself. Was I really that concerned that my kids fit into a social realm that I honestly did not even like that much? My desire had always been for them to be different, to stand out from the crowd – did I only want that if they were also accepted and even sought after by that same crowd?

These days, I would be honored for my kids to be called “homeschool weird.” No, not for anything as trivial as the way they dress or whether or not they are nerds, but to be called that because they do not go along with the crowd for popularity’s sake; because they do things that are not socially advantageous because it is the right thing to do ; because they take to heart the words in I Timothy 4:12 , “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith and in purity” …now that would be a “weird” worth being proud of.

“What does your day look like?” I get that question often from other homeschoolers and prospective homeschoolers. Maybe they’re looking for suggestions, or maybe for reassurance that, compared to me, they aren’t doing so badly :) My reply is usually “which day?” Being a fairly (okay, extremely) Type-A person, I do have a daily schedule which I begin each year with, always hoping that this is the year we are going to stick to it. But somewhere toward the middle or end of the first week, something happens to throw a monkey wrench into those plans – a doctor’s appointment, a sick child, an unexpected field trip opportunity, great weather, a speech therapy appointment, a needed book not coming in at the library or in the mail, a friend needing help….just a few of many reasons why I have to start juggling my day again. Being not just Type A, but rabidly Type A, for the first few years this threw me into a tailspin – if I could not keep my day’s schedule in the order I wanted, I felt like a homeschooling failure. Yes, I had heard that one of the benefits of homeschooling was that you did not have to recreate the classroom at home, but for someone like me it was one thing to hear it and another to really believe it and think that my kids would be okay if something put a glitch in their educational day. So I would struggle…always trying to strain each day into the schedule I had created, and feeling defeated when I did not. But I learned something along the way. My diligence to the kids completing their work and learning did not have to come in the form of a rigid daily schedule. Math did not have to be completed at the kitchen table every day at 9:20 a.m. in order for it to happen and for learning to take place. Sometimes math happened in the car, or in the waiting room. Sometimes it happened at night, or on a Saturday. I was so afraid of letting go of that schedule, afraid that in doing so my kids’ education would splinter and fall apart. I had seen people whose children just did not get taught, and in my mind that was the thumb in my back, the thing that kept me clinging to my schedule. I was not going to let that happen. As I got a few years under my belt, however, I noticed something. For all the years I had fretted over schedules gone awry, my kids were still doing fine academically. We still got things covered. They still, for the most part, were learning what they needed to learn. Education officials were not knocking down my door, wondering why my daughter did not know her times tables.

Although I have learned not to let the unexpected throw me as much as it once did, I find that it still helps me to start the year out with a schedule - but it’s a different sort of schedule. I know that, for me, I have to at least have a framework in place, a goal to shoot for, a benchmark to measure with. I have had years when I came to March and realized that we were only halfway through what we needed to learn that year. I have also had years where we were finishing in March, and I realized that the reason some of my kids had struggled that year was because I had pushed them too fast and too hard. So now, the daily schedule is not so much a factor in our lives, but the yearly schedule is. Before the school year starts, I sit down and set concrete academic goals for the year, and then I divide those goals quarterly, and then weekly. For me, this provides the security I need that we are somewhat on track, that even though that day or even that week did not go as planned, in the big picture we are still moving where we need to go. Do I still have to revise that? Sure I do – a child struggling academically (or advancing faster academically), a poor curriculum choice, changed priorities – all these things factor in and may force me to change my big picture. But for me, having that big picture in the first place provides me freedom – I know what my boundaries are and I have the freedom to work inside those boundaries, as well as the security that boundaries and a framework provide. It works for me…my own little playpen:)

To break or not to break? That is the question, for our family at least…at this time of year, at Christmas, in the spring, and in the summer (well, okay, NOT the summer). As I have mentioned before, one of the things I like about homeschooling is the freedom not to be tied to the public school schedule. That being said, we still find ourselves somewhat in the position of being tied to the public school schedule. Okay, I suppose we could just decide that we are not going to take a fall break, at least not this week, and we will save the time for when other kids are back in school and Mom needs it more (say, an extra week before Christmas to get shopping and baking done). Having taken that bold stance however, I am left to deal with the fallout. From my own kids, who “have to do school when no one else in the whole WORLD has to do school.” From the 15 other kids in the neighborhood who are on fall break, and who start knocking on our door bright and early to get mine to come out and play; and from the other public school kids at church, sports teams, etc. who want my kids to “PLEASE come spend the night since it is fall break week!”

When this whole thing started a few years ago, I was brave, I was determined…I was NOT going to let anyone else decide my breaks for me. I have now been worn down over the years, tired of swimming upstream holding up my independence banner while my kids cry and shoot me mournful looks over the tops of their math books. My sister, who is a homeschooler living in North Carolina, has it easy. Her neighbors’ kids “track out” periodically…whatever that term means, it boils down to the fact that if there are 15 kids in the neighborhood, then there are fifteen different weeks of fall break and no one is out at the same time (okay, maybe not fifteen). She doesn’t have to stand up and be Joan of Arc.

Co-ops and tutorials add another dimension to this. Sure, we could choose a different fall break than our co-op dictates. But then on our fall break, my kids are doing co-op homework, which does not go over well after having already missed the fall break that everyone else in the above-mentioned world took. I have heard of these dedicated (crazy?) people who school year round, maybe taking every Friday off, or maybe not doing as much work in a day. Not for me. As I stated above, whether or not to take a summer break is NOT in question. If I am to homeschool my kids in our own home, rather than remotely from a psychiatric ward, Momma must have her summer break. It’s not that I don’t agree with those who say that kids lose skills during the summer and have to spend the first few weeks of the school year in review – I do. But I am talking about basic survival and sanity here. I have a friend who started school a month late this year because of a move into a new house, and another who will take off two months for a new baby being born mid-year. How awesome is it that they have that flexibility? I am happy for them. For me, I would rather call out spelling words in between contractions than to have to school into June. Summer break? That’s a hill to die on. Fall break…not so much. And so, we are breaking.

In my last post I talked about the freedoms of homeschooling. In the interest of honesty and fairness, this one will explore my responsibilities as a homeschooler For anyone who has not homeschooled, I don’t want to paint an overly rosy picture of a family gathered around the fire with the girls’ heads resting on mom’s knee while I read some classic of literature. Are there days like that? Yes ( I had one back in 2005:). But I have been discouraged over the years when I would read about a family who seemed to be the ideal homeschool family, and then I would compare that to the reality of what goes on around my house most days. Do I love homeschooling, and can I not even imagine any other way of life for our family? Absolutely. Are there days when I want to run screaming into the distance (at least as far as the bus stop) and wait for someone to pick either me or my kids up? I would be lying if I denied it. The truth is, homeschooling is hard work. I am not telling you anything if you are a homeschooler – you discovered that your first week. Trying to get four kids with five different learning styles and a lot of drama to get it in gear and get their work done… well, let’s just say I struggle with the whole idea of a “gentle, quiet spirit.” And none of that learning can even take place until curriculum is researched and bought; kids are registered with an umbrella school or the like; kids are convinced, dads are convinced, moms are convinced…that this is the direction we all need to go as a family. I must admit, I do love curriculum – researching, comparing, buying…it’s the actual teaching that involves work for me. I know there are some homeschoolers who are not like this, but most of the homeschoolers I know are constantly worried that their kids aren’t getting enough…grammar, foreign language, social contacts, field trips, advanced math, you name it. The funny thing is, for other people I can see that they are doing just great by their kids – smart, well-adjusted, happy, social, compassionate, involved. It’s just hard to see it for yourself. A lot of us have that problem. We know we have the complete responsibility to oversee and provide for our kids’ education, and that is a daunting task. A great opportunity, but nevertheless daunting. It is easier to give that responsibility to someone else in some ways, because to shoulder it by yourself means that if your kid fails, in whatever area, you feel that you have failed them. I am not saying this to discourage you. I am saying this to encourage you…that to feel this way is normal. In my mind, no good homeschool parent ever thinks they have it all together and that their kids are getting the best of everything. It is that very angst that keeps us on our toes, keeps us pushing through that hard math, keeps us looking for the best way to motivate that child, keeps us searching for good curriculum, keeps us from calling the local school and enrolling them tomorrow (despite our threats to the contrary)…in short, a good homeschool parent is an insecure one. (Oh, wait, did that come out right?) So when you have a day (or days) of failure, when your kid has cried for the last week and says they don’t understand, when you hear that the kid next door is in the band and two clubs at school and you wonder if you are doing right by your child….take heart. Corinthians says "”My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me.” I am not homeschooling because I am a great teacher or even a great parent – I am doing it because that’s what I am called to do. God will take up the slack.

Completed girls’ lapbooks for co-op history class - check.. Took son to football practice – check. Other son to speech – check. Folded a load of laundry while grading a math page and giving a spelling test – check. Sometimes it seems like my life is one ever-expanding checklist of things to do, places to go, papers to grade, bathrooms to clean, kids to hug….wait! Did I just put that on a checklist?
Perhaps I should introduce myself. As the new blogger-in-residence for this online homeschool community, I would be wise to provide some background credentials so you will know my frame of reference when my posts get crazy, and you have a hard time keeping up with which child I am on my knees about in any given week. I am a mom of five, four of whom are homeschooled, the fifth in public school (please withhold your disapproval temporarily :) We have officially been on this homeschool journey for 8 years, since my oldest son started kindergarten, although I would venture to say that the journey started long before that. No, I was not the industrious girl who homeschooled my preschoolers, but the calling and the path to homeschooling for us started soon after the birth of my first son. The arrival of a second son two years later, and then the birth of my triplets girls two years after that (more about that at another time) did send shock waves into the whole homeschool thing, but by the time my son was 5 and the others were 3, 1,1,and 1, I was not in the shape to get them all out of the house to take him to school in the morning anyway, so homeschooling it was!
I have been asked many times over the years why I homeschool. In the early years I gave people answers that I hoped would convince them of the academic and moral superiority of homeschooling. I moved from that into giving answers that would just convince them that I was doing all right by my children. In the last few years, however, I have been more honest with them, and with myself. My son summed it up the other day when we had to rearrange our schedule for co-op pictures, and we happened to be out in the morning and stopped at Sonic. “Mom,” he said, “you know what I love most about homeschooling? The freedom.” And that, for me, sums it up. The freedom to choose the curriculum I use to teach my kids. The freedom to see them learn, and to adjust their learning method as needed. To spend more time with my kids, not bound by someone else’s schedule, routine, and priorities. To “do school” outside or at the park on a day that is heartbreakingly perfect after many days of rain. The freedom to eat lunch with Daddy. The freedom to explore a subject that is not a part of a “Scope and Sequence.” To visit the nursing home, or volunteer with Operation Christmas Child, or do school at an aging grandparent’s home in order to spend time with them. The freedom to have “faith conversations” all day, not just in the morning and at night. The freedom not only to know the kids my kids are friends with, but their moms and dads and siblings as well. To watch siblings actually grow up with each other, helping each other learn (and yes, to tease and fight). The freedom to teach my child to read, and the joy when he or she “gets it” (and the tears when they don’t). It says in Galatians “It was for freedom that Christ set us free; therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery”. I am no theologian, and I am pretty sure that homeschooling was not exactly what Paul had in mind when he penned these words, but I can’t help but think of them when I explore just why I homeschool. Freedom....that’s why.