Five Lessons I am Learning as a Homeschooling Mama -OR- How I ROCK My Denim Jumper

1. It's never wrong to bribe your children with candy. 

Or free time.  Or really awesome field trips. Or cigarettes. 

 

Ha! Just kidding on the cigarettes part. Kind of.

 

2. Sometimes it does, indeed, stink to be both parent and teacher. 

That was one of my original turn-offs to homeschooling for our family.  And lest you think that so far that it has been all glitter and rainbows and unicorns, we have had some tears every day. 

Sometimes MAJOR SOBFESTS. 

Sometimes I'm not even the one crying!  Woo to the hoo!

But, I'm not gonna lie.  Getting sweet kisses and hugs from my boys at various times during the day is pretty fantastic.  And seeing the c*a*l*m that homeschooling has brought to what has previously been our chaotic, hectic lives has been invaluable. And striving to make almost every aspect of our lives simultaneously educational AND fun is really not that far out of our element anyway. 

 

Yeah.  I don't mind saying it.  We're nerds like that.

 

3.  It's OK to have your children/students write your speech-language evaluations for you as a part of their writing curriculum. 

Really.  What a timesaver! 

 

Wait a minute.  Hold up.  Didn't I just mention a Medicaid audit three posts ago?  Hello Medicaid Auditor Friends!  Did I say that my KIDS were writing up those evaluations?  HA HA HA! That was just a joke!  A JOKE!  I'm so, so silly! Those sentences you just read in Billy's evaluation?  The ones that say,

"Billy can talk. He is a boy.  He likes to play."

Yeah, those sentences? I TOTALLY wrote that!  I promise!

 

4. Your kids TOTALLY won't notice if you haven't showered.

Or, if you aren't wearing a bra. 

 

Heck, one of mine loves to go "commando" anyway, so I guess we can all see now where he gets that genetic component. My mother is shaking her head in shame.

 

Clearly, a little more Clothing Accountability might be in order.  Field trips will remedy that, right? Because heaven forbid I practice hygiene, you know, just for the sake of my dear family.

 

5. I can soooo pull off this little slice of AWESOMESAUCE MAKEOVER:

 

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One of My New Favorite Blogs Go Now NOW I SAID!

Why Yes, Yes, I AM A Blog Neglector

Or is it NeglectEr?  I just don't know.

Oh, it's been a busy seven months or so since last I posted.  Let's just see.  Seven months has also turned me into:

• a homeschooling mama  - something I have always SWORN I would never be. So let's never say "never" again.  Or else be prepared to EAT YOUR WORDS.

And also ~

• a fugitive from the government - crazy how they come after you when you start earning a little moolah from them.  That, my friends, has been one long crazy ride. That is still going. Today I am choosing to pretend that this lovely audit process is going on because I seriously know how to rock some cute shoes, and they need my tips.

So, please pardon me while I attempt a self-inflicted Facebook Intervention and return here sporadically for my writing fix.

 

Carry on.

 

I Am A Mother of Boys

Today was gorgeous. Like 67 degrees and sunny without a cloud in the sky.

I spent the afternoon raking up the

4,509,450,280,239,842,098,209,840,958,424,958,095,852,945,209,958 sweetgum balls

in our yard.  Give or take a couple.

Public Service Announcement: do NOT ever plant these trees in your yard.

Unless you love - lurrrrrve - raking.

Boys, meanwhile, were allowed to go down to the creek with the strict instruction,

"Do NOT go in the water!"

I could hear the sounds of high hilarity ensuing down at the creek, and cries of

"let's slide down the hill!!"

However, I left the little apes to their own devices, knowing that,

a) they were completely safe                                     

b) I really wanted to get some major raking done        

c) never interrupt brothers getting along                   

d) I am a "cool mom". Remember?                              

Around 5:00 p.m., we all evidently decided to call it quits on the outside time,

and as I was wrapping up dumping my

582,459,823,052,495,882,340,598,235,982,309th bag of yard debris in the woods,

I heard the lovely sound of two brothers in cahoots drifting from the backyard

 as they walked together up to the house.

And that, folks, is when I saw this:

Silly me.  Why should I think that "don't go in the water!"

 would translate into "don't roll in the mud"?????

There is no way on this earth that I was letting those apes in my house like that,

so the only thing to do was hose them down.

And remember how it was 68 degrees outside?

I do believe that was also the temperature of the water in the hose.

I'm quite sure that more than one neighbor called DSS and/or the sheriff's office

to request a home visit to our fine estate.

The crying and wailing and screaming and gnashing of teeth could undoubtedly

be heard throughout the neighborhood,

throughout the state,

yay, even throughout the centuries.

Such pain by young children has surely never been endured.

It's possible that one child cried, "You're killing me!!"

And that another one bellowed, "My childhood is over!!"

It's also possible that their father came home from work during the de-mudding process

 and stood in his driveway hiding his laughter behind some old towels.

But, lo, the mud did come off, and

my apes were able to come inside and get hot showers.

Not so sure that never interrupting brothers getting along is a good idea.

Also, not so sure about how cool I am.

But I am fairly positive that instead of sweet, pretty, Barbie-playing girls,

my husband gave me stinky, slimy, mud-monster boys.

The TRUE Story of the Becky You Thought You Knew

Truth #1: She will make you smart.

A few months ago, my cohort in private practice/business owner hijinks, Ms. Becky, suggested that we participate in our national speech organization's online CEU conference on running a private practice (or, "Grad School Didn't Teach You About Business").  Only her caveat was that we needed to go away - out of town - to do this since heaven knows that we wouldn't be able to focus and learn while at home with the precious tots and dear hubbers around to drive us to distraction.  While I (sadly) wouldn't have considered this on my own, clearly my girl is brills, and off to Abingdon, VA we trotted.

 Bless her sweet soul, she found a great hotel for us and the room was quiet and perfect.  We just settled back on our cozy beds, pulled out the trusty laptops, tuned in to the conference, and proceeded to spend several hours tuning into Facebook, reading favorite blogs, texting listening to and learning from several scintillating sessions.  And no, ma'am.  There is no way that we even remotely made fun of other [nerdy, suck-up] speech pathologists that were tuning in to the live chat session we attended. 

 Truth #2: She will make you have fun.

Clearly, there is no way we could have gained all 30 possible CEU hours in one weekend without going completely insane, and while I am almost down that trail, I do like to leave just a little normal for the hubs.  So after a good night's rest and several sessions under our collective belt on Saturday morning, we took the afternoon to play. 

 Ms. Becky re-introduced me to a pastime I have explored (ha!  pun intended!) in the past, but haven't done in quite some time: geocaching.  Ms. Becky knows how to do all kinds of magical things with her phone, and this is one of them.  I'll be a monkey's uncle if there wasn't a geocache located in our hotel's parking lot...and evidently there were 9,999 more located in the Abingdon area.  And if we were going to find them, we needed fortification.  In the form of chocolate.  Which lead us to the building in the picture above.

If you look closely (or click it to enlarge), can you see the name?  Candyland?  Is it bad if I wondered if it was a porn shop before we went in? 

Truth #3: She will make you visit questionably-named shoppes

 So, no, actually it is indeed candy.  And the shoppe is run by about the cutest little older lady who had been reading her Bible before we came in.  She gave us several samples and loaded us up with our choices (for the families, obviously), all the while telling us how she only makes the fudge, but that the rest of the candy is "top of the line."

 Truth #4: She will make you stick your hand in all kinds of places you wouldn't have thought you would stick it.

This is a PG blog, folks.  Keep it wholesome there. Oh, did we geocache all over Abingdon!  It was so much fun.  Have you done this before?  It's like treasure hunting.  Sometimes all you find are little tiny geocaches.  The one at the hotel was in a film container.  And you can see how tiny the one below is:

 Inside was only a miniscule roll of paper to sign.  Super cute.  Can you find the geocache in the picture below??

 Lo and behold, you just think that the picture below is a moody train tracks scene, but oh my heavenly days, no!  There is a geocache hidden somewhere in this picture!

Truth #5: She will make you fit.

One of my favorite things we did that weekend was run together.  Now, my Becky Girl is a dedicated, fantastic runner. Me, on the other hand?  I'm only a dabbler.  Run for a month.  Take eight months off.  That's my style.  But my Ms. Becky encouraged me to give it a little whirlsie.  There is a beautiful trail through Abingdon called the Virginia Creeper.  While many people use it for biking, it's also used quite a bit for walking or running, too. We decided to try a run five minutes - walk two minutes pace.  Yes, I know that sounds slow, but in the words of my Great Encourager (that's Becky, by the way), "at least we're moving!"  We were able to log in about four miles that day. And that whole doggone time, she was so positive and encouraging and cheering me on. 

Truth #6: She will not hold your hair back for you when you urp.

So, perhaps going from non-running to running four miles was not my best idea, but it felt totally do-able.  However, around mile three, my stomach started to revolt.  I was just sure if I walked a bit the nausea would go away and we could PUMP it for the last mile.  Unfortunately, my stomach had other plans, and off to the side of the trail I went.  And away walked my Ms. Becky.  Girl does NOT do throw-up.  And truthfully, who of us really does want to do that.  It's all good.  I was done with running, but we did make it back to the car in one piece.

 Truth #7: She will allow you to participate in illegal activities.

Never fear: I did get some revenge the next day.  We (I?) decided to take the curvy mountain roads for scenic pleasure on the way home, and alas, it did not do so well for Ms. Becky.  She is a non-puker, though, so no urping was to be had, but unfortunately, she was not feeling up to a little side stop on our way home.  I have passed this house for years and have been dying to go up to it, but it's never been a great time. While Becky sat and chilled and gathered her stomach, I trotted right by the private property signs, through the Christmas trees, and up the hill to this fantastic old house. 

I took tons of pictures, but I ended up being too chicken pants to go inside by myself.  It's completely different from this house that I loved, but it's still so incredible.  Who in the world would build such a huge house waaaaay out in the middle of nowhere land a hundred years or so ago in Allegheny county? I think it might need a little work before I can move in.

Truth #8: She is a great travel companion and one of my favorite friends in the world.

We had such a great time, and there is no one with whom I would rather listen to boring lectures.  I *think* we learned some new things about running a private speech therapy practice. But what I really learned is what a treasure I have in this friendship.

So, Did Living Gluten-Free Make Any Difference??

Well, as a matter of fact, YES! 

And so, I am able to proudly proclaim that now...

That's right folks!  This truly has been the life-changing experience that I was hoping for!  Yippee!

It took about two weeks for me to notice any change, and the first thing I noticed was that my skin was a lot less broken out.  A LOT.  And smoother.

Alas, cutting out gluten seems to have done nothing for my eye wrinkles.

And those, my friends, age me so much past my 23 years.

Sigh.

But back to the topic at hand, at about two weeks, I was able to notice a change in my digestive works.  You really don't need (or want to know) the details here, but let's just say that everything seems to be magically hunky dory down there now,

 and that I am a much pleasanter person to be around. 

Ha!  For many reasons!

I guess I would honestly say it's been as life-changing as taking magnesium was for me several years ago, and it really has been a relatively simple life change for me to make.

And, AND, I have lost TEN STINKING POUNDS THIS MONTH!

Only, not so stinking at all since I'm a low-toot kinda girl now.

TMI?  Really?

I have to admit, I am pretty boring in my food choices, though, which is more self-imposed than anything.  I am still eating greek yogurt (with a tablespoon of flaxseed and a quarter cup of nuts), 8 ounces of low-sodium V8 juice and coffee for breakfast and  a piece of fruit mid-morning.  Lunch might be leftovers from dinner, salad,  hummus and veggies with corn tortillas, or something similar.  And dinner is actually fairly normal, just with lots of veggies.  We eat more vegetarian meals these days (although definitely not solely vegetarian), and if I make some type of bread to go with dinner, I just don't eat it. 

Only ice cream or popcorn for dessert.

Want to know what I miss the most?  Yummy breakfast foods like waffles and pancakes.  I did get some gluten free flour ($7.00 for a pound and a half - YIKES!) at the grocery store the other day, but I'll probably use it sparingly.  We've also cut back on our eating out because it's so much more involved to eat at a restaurant where I don't always know if the food is truly gluten-free. As a result, we have been eating out a lot less, which is good for the waistline and wallet.  If I know I'm going to eat out, I try to do a little research online before I go of available gluten-free menu items, and I will typically ask if they have a gluten-free menu. 

When in doubt, I get a salad.

My only cheater cheater pumpkin eater moment came when I ate a bit of regular cake mix when I made cake balls for a family function.  The bits of cake I ate were yummy, but it came at a price.  Which is confirmation enough to me of my sensitivity. 

And I don't make my family follow my diet. My kids and hubs still eat all the breakfast stuff, chicken nuggets, pasta dishes, etc.  If we can substitute gluten-free pasta (or whatever), we do. 

If I can't, then I make myself a separate dish. 

It's really been no big deal.

And, oh, are the rewards worth it in so many ways.  I am so thankful that my niece and sister-in-law mentioned eating gluten-free to me at Christmas. 

It was the catalyst I needed to give it a try.

And the support of family and so many friends has made this a very attainable goal.

THANK YOU from the bottom of my colon.  Errr...heart.

Visiting

Hello folks!  Today I am guest posting over on my friend Kelly's blog,

Modern Earth Design.

Is she not the cutest?

Please come on over and share the blog love

with a little easy DIY project thrown in!

And, just as a little bonus,

it is entirely possible that

this awesome vintage teaset make an appearance

IN MY HOME!