Flexibility

One of the myriad of reasons we home-school is because of the flexibility it gives our schedule. Or, so I say.

I sometimes wonder, though, why I don't always let us be flexible. We slept in this morning until 8:30 a.m.. Once we were all finally up and moving I got all panicky about the time we'd lost out on from sleeping in. I almost let myself slip into Nazi mode, barking orders at the kids and insisting they hurry up already. And I have to wonder why. The kids were tired from a busy Thanksgiving weekend and that extra sleep made them happier and it eventually made getting through our schoolwork much easier, as I found out when we buckled down and easily and enjoyably got through spelling, math and reading.

It's easy, in theory, to say you're flexible but I've found it's much more difficult to actually execute that concept. It's so easy to compare yourself to others and think you're somehow not measuring up. "Ack!" I might think to myself, "The neighborhood kids have been in school for thirty minutes already!" as I look at Hank, hair all askew, still outfitted in pajamas and standing in the kitchen peeling an orange.

It takes a real effort to remind myself that that's OK. That's one of the reasons we do this. We get a lot done in short bursts of time. We might do that while we're still in our PJs, or while we're eating breakfast, but we get it done and, in my extremely biased opinion, I think we get it done very well.

We still have a lot more to get done today, but it's only 11 a.m. Madeleine is in the shower and Hank and Elisabeth are building a city with wooden blocks. My instinct is to disrupt them, to hurry them downstairs to watch the next installment of their Latin video. And I will in a bit. But I also have to tell my instincts that they'll go more happily and learn much more if they're not rushed and panicked. So Hank can finish his Empire State Building and Madeleine can get dressed without rushing. And that's OK. And that's OK. Repeat, repeat, repeat.