The Most Busiest Time of The Year

Riley asked us in the car last night, "How many days until Christmas?"  I thought for a second, and answered, "39."  And then my eyes popped out of my head, and Roger nearly drove off the road.

Yes, it's true, folks.  The Holiday Freight Train has reached top speed, it's coming, like it or not.

So to avoid that for a while, let's talk about something else.  My hair is the last short thing (get it?  Short....haha) I posted about, so let's revisit that.  I chopped it.  About 10 inches gone.  It felt GREAT, because it needed to.  You see, my hair was so damaged and broken from not taking proper care of it (think impulsive grocery store color dyes and cheap shampoo), that the only thing left to do was a fresh start.  Like a lot of women, I've always wanted to try short hair.  So I went and did it.  A lot of things the internet said were true.  You love it for a second, then get home and hate it, then spend the next two weeks flipping back and forth with how you feel.  You take about a week to stop pumping all that shampoo in your hand in the shower.  Everyone says they love it and you don't believe them.  It's grown in for about a month now, and I do actually love it.  It's so freakin' easy.  And I need easy right now, that's for sure.  Being a Mom, a Wife, homeschooling the kids....... is actually nothing compared to trying to keep up with my husband's business!

In October, the big kids took the Terra Nova Survey Test, a test that satisfies PA's requirement that testing be done in 3rd, 5th, and 8th grade for homeschool students and included in their portfolio.  Testing locations were set up by PA Homeschoolers, an organization dedicated to, you guessed it, homeschoolers in PA.  We were a little nervous, testing the kids in fall for the grade that they were currently in.  I warned them that we were just doing this to fill a requirement, there might be some things on the test they didn't know or hadn't learned yet, etc, and not to worry about it.  We had the 6th grader take the test, too, just to give us an idea where he was.  Apparently, we had nothing to worry about.  Both kids scored in the 99th percentile nationwide.  Which led us into doing some further placement tests (many placement tests are offered free from curriculum sites, in hopes that you will then buy their curriculum).  The placement tests showed a couple of things.  That they both are well ahead of grade level in reading and comprehension, which is not a surprise.  Indy placed into 5th grade language arts, but we're going to do 4th grade, just because this is our first experience with moving them up.  It's a little scary, honestly, because with public school you just go with the flow.  Chase tested a grade level up in language arts, but only after he was given the definitions of all the vocabulary.  This is the second public school (PS) deficiency we've found so far, he wasn't taught the vocab in a way that he retained it (but of course got all A's).  We've sucked stuff off the 'net and are reviewing all the vocab before moving forward.  The other thing we've found is that all of his 3-digit and greater multiplication is wrong.  The method is wrong, meaning he does the same wrong thing every time.  So it sort of screwed us, because that's the only reason why he didn't test into 7th grade math, last year at school and in a home placement test.  We purchased 6th grade math curriculum due to those tests, which he's flying through because he knows everything except correct multiplication.   So we're remediating the multiplication errors, and he'll most likely start 7th grade math in early spring.  But again, he got all A's last year in math... hmmm.  There was nothing that indicated to us that he was unable to do written multiplication.

Also in October, we attended the elementary school's Monster Mash and the kids got to see lots of their friends.  I had the urge to make a sign that said, "Homeschool Weirdo" and wear it on my back as my costume, but I resisted.  And actually, once there, we didn't feel so weird.  Everyone was happy to see us and made us feel included.  The little guys and I went on a Hayride to the Pumpkin Patch trip with her old Preschool.  They are so considerate of us, they invited us along with their whole school, knowing that Riley was doing homeschool this year.  She had a blast connecting with friends and teachers.

We won our short, but time-consuming, mini-battle (not really, it stayed friendly) with the district over whether or not Indy could join the Strings Ensemble.  We had originally been told that she could not join since it was "an extension of the curriculum" and the law supports inclusion on extracurricular activities only.  I spent hours researching PA homeschool law, put calls in to the Department of Ed., spoke with lawyers at HSLDA (Homeschool Legal Defense Association), speaking with the Director of Student Services and educating him about all I was learning.  I hadn't set out to be an advocate, but I became one during this process.  My Mom and my awesome neighbor encouraged me throughout, which I needed.  I had letters typed and ready to go to the school board and the local paper to bring attention to our issue... but I didn't end up needing them.  I woke up from a half-sleep one night and shook Roger awake to excitedly inform him that I had figured it out... I had it.  "Had what?" he asked, sleepily.  "If Strings is an extension of the curriculum, and in PA, school districts are required by law to lend home ed students the curriculum, then all I have to do is ask them HOW they plan on lending us the Strings Program?"  I was so proud of myself for coming up with that - Ha!  But it turns out I didn't need that, either.  The very next day I got a phone call that said she was invited to join, that the Director had spoken with the superintendent and other administrators to clarify what we could do.  And that was it.  We drove and got her a rental violin that very day.  She started lessons 3 weeks late, but since she had been a Suzuki student for a year, she caught up in 2 days.  Her BFF also joined Strings, so they have violin playdates now.

Grandpop came up for Halloween, and we had a great weekend with him.

Dr. Who, Mickey Mouse, Vampire, & Scooby-Doo

Dr. Who costume - $10 total for pants and jacket at the thrift store plus some hemp string to tie down his Red Solo Cup fez hat, Mickey - borrowed from sis-in-law, Vampire - $6 dress from thrift store plus $1 make-up kit, Scooby - $5 thrift store find.  We no longer purchase cheaply made kid costumes to celebrate Halloween, as they always tend to disappoint in some way.  I am not a sewer, so making them myself is out.  We happened upon the dress and then Scooby in the thrift store one day (thrift stores, clean ones of course, cannot be beaten for kids' knockaround shoes!) and that settled that as the girls fell in love, we went back for Chase's Dr. Who outfit.  We were impressed at the options for Halloween in our local thrift store, and we loved that we bought something used (repurposing) instead of contributing to the excessive amount of new "junk" being produced just for this fun holiday.  

Mickey rides in style.  He was quite serious, riding to the foot of each driveway, then running to doors to collect, and never letting go of that bucket!

That is one happy Puppy!

We finally got the girls sort-of, kind-of moved in to their new room (beds and dressers, waiting on a closet organizer), and we got the toilet installed in the hall bath about an hour before Grandpop showed up.  We figured he probably didn't want to walk all the way up to the Master Bath to pee.  We finally have two toilets again!!  This is so exciting, you have no idea.  We have learned A LOT over the last 8 months sharing one bathroom with all of us plus everyone who comes through our home.

Roger puts the bathroom door on, while Indy grabs some shims.  

A sneak peek of the new laundry area.  Bathroom tile in the background.  

Old room in progress of moving STUFF.  Why do girls have so much STUFF?!?

 Indy's new loft bed goes in first.  The mattress on the floor is for Grandpop to sleep on. 

Some stuff moves in

Nice, big 8 ft closet.  Dresser goes in the middle, and we'll custom build the storage around it. 

In the meantime, the kids play with old toys and jump from slides onto beds.

Moving the girls over finally meant repurposing the old room, and although over the many months we had tons of ideas, it was obvious that we needed homeschool storage, badly, and the big kids also needed a space to able to go to work quietly and independently, without the distraction of the little guys.  So that's what we did.  And, bonus, I can see the office floor again!

Office Before... Homeschool Everywhere

The Office - De-Schooled

$90 in IKEA bookcases (BILLY bookcase) in the new "Homeschool Room"

We kept Indy's custom Roger-made loft bed for a reading area, on top and underneath

So that's a wee bit of what's been going on.  

I did something...

Hey Family & Friends, 

Lookee what I did:

You Know You're a HomeSchool Mom If....

I know, I know... the topic is SO overdone here on the 'net.  But each family has their own experiences, and this list has been growing in my head for a wee bit of time now.  So here goes my version:

You Know You're a HomeSchool Mom If...


1)  You find yourself talking in phonemes... All.  The.  /T/ /ie/ /m/.  The cashier at the grocery store and the bank teller look at you like you've grown a second head.

(Stock photo from e-teacherresources.com)

2)  It really didn't take that long to learn to ignore the stares and funny looks you get from the people who realize you have big kids out in public during the school day.

3) You have learned to stop correcting the people who have asked why your kids are not in school, and you told them you homeschool, and then they forget 2 minutes later and make comments like, "Ok, better get back to school!"  It just ain't worth it.

4)  The amount of recyclables you save for projects has increased tenfold.  Every few weeks you need to clear some floor space and dump out your overflowing boxes along with some glue and crafty stuff and declare that it's Art.  All day.  Until we have used up enough supplies to make the boxes fit back in the closet.

5)  You routinely make decisions that you know you'll later regret (like opening bags of playsand directly on your back patio that will just collect leaves and grit and need to be cleaned up by someone hopefully before it snows but probably in reality won't be) because you've convinced yourself of its fantastic educational value.

6)  Every time you remind your kids to choose a healthy snack, it turns into a 20 minute discussion, which you then mark off as "Health class."

7)  You thought doctor's appts and such would be less crowded during the day, but the waiting rooms are filled with a phenomenal amount of old people (the kind that are staring at you wondering why your kids are not at school) and you still have to wait.

(Stock photo, not my own!)

8)  You're learning so much that you wonder what the heck you ever got of your own schooling back in the day.  You sometimes excitedly tell other adults about these things, like life in Mesopotamia, or a trick to dividing fractions, and then realize that they don't care and just want you to shut up and talk about something normal, like the weather.

9)  You sometimes speak with people who know of someone who is/was homeschooled, and that homeschooled person "went to Harvard/is extremely well-mannered/won the Nobel Peace Prize/wrote a new version of the standard dictionary in 5 languages/insert other grand accomplishment here."  You learn to smile and say, "Hey, no pressure, right?"

10)  You've got a rhythm to your week...

                Day 1 - HomeSchool.  You cover 27 subjects and are still smiling and feel quite accomplished.

                Day 2 - Wake up grumpy because there is "School" all over your house.  Declare that no School is getting done until School is cleaned up!

                Day 3 - HomeSchool.  Your house is only half cleaned up from 2 days ago, but School must happen, so you muster through the most important subjects and then take everyone outside to read some History, conveniently choosing to just not look at the inside of your house.

                Day 4 - Laundry has announced that it is not going to fold itself and you haven't seen the bottom of the sink in days.  The kids make comments all morning under their breath about how Homeschool is not ChoreSchool, but you get some basics done and then sit your grumpy kids down to do School.

                Day 5 - Meet up with your homeschool group at bowling/the park/the firehouse/the arboretum/insert educational place here.  Smile and act like you have been entirely productive all week.

                Days 6 & 7 - Sometimes a little School happens, sometimes you just build and rebuild train tracks all day.

You reflect on your week and realize that you actually DID accomplish quite a bit, even though it maybe didn't feel like it at times.  You realize it was awesome to be with your kids for every little learning experience, and that you wouldn't trade it for anything.