Back to School!

Today marks the first day of school here at the "Jalowiec Academy of Excellence" for the 2007-2008 school year.

It is such a great thing to home school, because people will attach all kinds of SuperMom qualities to me and only I know they couldn't be further from the truth! I would love to be organized, have the unconditional respect and admiration from my children (which must be the case if they actually submit to my teaching them!), as well as an "always clean home" (due to the readily available child labor force I possess), and a divinely contented husband that has dinner waiting for him upon his return home from work served to him on china and crystal. To be sure, I have been meticulously groomed and primped for him, too!

NOT!!!

I sometimes think the real motivation for home schooling is to simply contain the chaos as much as possible. Could you imagine if I had to report to five teachers, three different principals, guidance counselors, bus drivers...! Yikes!

Truthfully, I would not trade these years for anything. There is an inexplainable joy in having my children with me all the time. I have an 12 year gap between my daughters, and even though one is 16 and the other 4, they really know each other! My sons' best play mates are each other- well, most of the time! (I have been told that physical violence play is a sign of affection...)

The kids benefit from being able to take advantage of Dad's free time, too. There are days he doesn't leave for work until 1:00, and the entire morning is spent with him. It totally wrecks the school day, but I need to look at the bigger picture! Dad is a vital part of our family, and he gets to have real quality time with them. If they were traditionally schooled, they would be gone when he is home, and I could have him all to myself... wait, that is supposed to say they wouldn't see him for the entire day!

That does bring up another point, though. We as parents need to be very creative when it comes to time with each other. Kids seem to have the ability to consume everything they possibly can- and I don't mean just the weeks groceries!

So, here we go plodding the course of another year of study. Another year of Biology labs, sentence diagramming, spelling tests, field trips, Algebra and multiplication tables. How the time flies! To think my O. has only two years until graduation! Class of 2009! She will share the pleasure with Dad, who will be graduating from NSBI. Not to let that give me much of a feeling of "I am getting done"- S. is only four... at least 13 more years to go!

p.s. Though the calendar said "First Day of School"- it was less than a successful day!

p.p.s. I don't even want to admit how many times I had to rely on spell checker for this post!