A Mother’s Journal

May I admit frustration and defeat today?  Thank you!  (hugs)

I need to vent, and big time.  It’s one of those days where I feel like a complete failure!  Ever have one of those as a mom?  And by the way, did someone speed up time?  Where did my babies go is the soul-wrenching question that’s really bothering me deep down inside (I just know it) but it’s surfacing in very discouraging thoughts like you’ve wasted so many hours cleaning the house and it only got dirty again!  Or you wanted to have the kids outside doing Charlotte Mason-style art lessons every day and all they do is watch videos.  Or this is not the life you planned at all and with so many bills and so much to do, how can you get to where you want to be before the kids are grown?  Or you have let yet another day go by without getting all the school lessons done!

Ever have thoughts like those?  I would wager that I am not alone.  Yep, it’s one of those days.  And I’m not sure how to deal with all of the above-mentioned thoughts that seemed to hit all at one time.  Everything will be okay.  Right? 

I probably better deal with one thought at a time.  (And I might need some chocolate as well.) 

Let’s start with the wasting time cleaning the house thing.  I think know this might really be an issue for me.  I have carpets that need cleaning, and I want to spend a day soon cleaning them, but I don’t want my children to have memories of me only cleaning house, but I want them to learn to keep their own houses clean.  How’s that for rambling?  I hate to look back and think of all the days I scrapped lessons and playing outside to get my house spotless and here it is dirty again.  Will a little dirt kill us?  I have decided right here on the spot that I am only working on one room a day and I mean only 15 minutes of work!  Yes, the dishes and the clothes and the cooking all have to get done, but we can all pitch in and work together, by cracky.  I’m not ever going to spend another entire day cleaning while my children are still little–well some of them are!  I am going to ENJOY my children.  I should know by now that they grow up too fast.

Now what was the next thought?  Oh yes.  Charlotte Mason-style art lessons.  That one really hurts.  Yes indeed.  I probably am overly hard on myself with this one because I wanted to accomplish so very much with this.  It’s true that my gardens are a big part of our life here. You can tell by my posts.  So perhaps I am doing more to influence and teach my children about nature than I realize, but I can’t be sure.  My children play way too many video games and watch way too many movies and spend way too much time on the computer.  I must quit sitting here myself — being a bad example — and help them make healthy changes.  I am vowing, right now, to take nature walks and do nature journaling with my kids as often as I can.  Any time we can get outside, that’s where we are going to be.  I am also committing myself right now to buying new sketch pads and colored pencils and using them again myself on a regular basis. 

Here comes another ugly one.  This is not the life you wanted.  Whoa!!  How scary is it to even think that?  Not want my kids?  Insult my husband that way?  Be unthankful for what I have?  Well, I don’t mean it like that.  It’s just that I pictured us in the country, where I would have fields and meadows and streams.  You know, to sketch.  But couldn’t we be just as undisciplined in the country?  Could I sit too long at the computer in the country?  Could the kids watch too many movies in the country?  Heck yeah.  I think the problem might be ME.  Yes, me.  I need to structure our days a little better and learn to navigate my children to other things.  I need to locate the OFF button on my computer.  This hearkens back to yucky thought #2 where I have us outside as much as possible.  And I think I need to work on loving what I have. 

This last thought that’s bothering me…  Well, it’s a hard one too.  Not getting lessons done.  Homeschooling is harder now — in a way.  I have a son in high school who is nearly grown.  He is wonderful.  Can I say that again?  He is a totally awesome person!  My husband’s and my own years of moral influence are basically done.  But it’s not that part that worries me.  It’s that my son is capable of – and deserves – so much.  How can I give it to him, or ensure he is ready to go out and get it?  Maybe I can’t. 

This is where life gets in the way.  I would love — I covet — the kind of time that some of you moms have to plan your homeschool lessons.  I have always, except for one short year, had to work full time, and much of that was outside of our home.  I have to be judicious with my time.  I have to follow through with lessons.  I don’t have time to pout and make excuses.  (So why do I do it sometimes anyway?)

Lest anyone think I have a son who’s been totally neglected and has no learning whatsoever, that’s not the case.  I have had the joy of teaching this dyslexic child to read.  He loves to read.  He reads more than all the rest of us put together.  And there’s a great big part of me that knows that if a person can read they can do anything.  I nearly lost myself totally in public high school.  I failed classes due to skipping and I had no drive to listen to one ounce of anything that any of my teachers had to say.  I didn’t learn much.  But I did read.  All the time.  And it was only later on in life, when I took the initiative to get educated that I put my nose to the grindstone, and when that happened I paid for my own college education at private university with my own money. 

A lot of what education is is what a person seeks out own their own.  I just need a swift kick in the rear-end to make me follow through every single day with the spelling and math lessons that I know my son needs some direction with.  I am vowing right now to do it.  My days off will be planning and library days.  I am always here in the mornings.  I am vowing right now to commit at least one hour each morning to these lessons — with a little luck, two hours.  The rest he is already on auto-pilot with.  And, as I mentioned earlier, self-motivation is not a bad thing!

So that is my very long commentary for today.  I feel better.  I really do.  Things seem so cohesive and do-able on paper (or computer screen, in this case).  And the truth of the matter is that if I can dream it, I can do it!

PS — My daughter just appeared, as if on queue and asked to go on a bike ride.  I said yes.  We went.  We are back.  We enjoyed time at a local park. I feel better.