The slippery slope

We bought school supplies yesterday. And that begins the slippery slope of events that lead to the kids going back to school!

I've struggled with that a bit as I have great joy in my children and great joy in peaceful solitude, and never the twain shall cohabitate. Homeschoolers often talk about how they love the time with their kids and that they can't imagine someone else having such an enormous role in educating so many facets of their little ones' minds and personalities.

But I think about having to take all four of them to the grocery store every trip, or finding child care for them each time anyone has a professional health appointment.

I know that every time you have a child your life has to readjust pretty extensively. You learn that going to the store with an extra kid is just a way of life. Since it's a fact, you adapt, find ways to make it work physically and in the minds of your children. When you home school young children, the same sort of mental adaptation takes place. You either take them to the grocery store every time or arrange your schedule to go without them. You deal with it.

Summer is a hard time for many stay at home parents since the schedule that seemed to be working so well is suddenly pulled out from under you and a new schedule that involves fewer hobbies, less personal time, and more time answering all of the needs of curious, eternally hungry, active children who each have a wide variety of interests that only casually overlaps the interests of the next child takes over and CONSUMES YOUR LIFE until they go back to school. (run on sentence? yes, thank you.)

School is the norm. It's the comfortable rut we lean back toward once the novelty of summer wears thin and we begin to itch to for the company of new friends and time spent on other interests. Homeschoolers have the option of schooling when they want as long as they do enough hours and subjects in a given time frame. While we do a happy dance as the cashier scans a dozen glue sticks, homeschoolers are also stocking up on sale-priced school supplies and smiling benignly at the poor ladies who must part with their children ere long.

Oh, I've enjoyed our lazy time. I've enjoyed waking up only when the baby needs a "boppy" change and then casually throwing together whatever brunch we feel like having. The books and the games and the movies and the pool have all been a blast.

But I've long been a proponent of the principle of absence making the heart grow fonder. We lay foundations, we build bridges, and then away the littles go into the wide world. Family dinners are just that much more important. Daddy/kid dates are made with greater frequency. Family home evening is eagerly anticipated. It's easier to forgive your sister when she pops your balloon because she is more dear than aggravating.

Doesn't it all sound like such golden sunshine? Of course it isn't. I'll still have to figure out how to get them to do their chores and homework with enough time to spare in the day for kid-type romps. Laundry will still breed like tribbles and errands will still revolve around the imperative toddler nap.

But I'll have some quiet time each day.

Quiet time, that thing I stay up way too late to have, even after Man is asleep and the laundry is put away. The dishes are clean and I have no emails to write. And yet, here I am, soaking it in.

Homeschoolers, when on earth do you have quiet time? When do you get your shopping done? When do you wind down so you can once again fervently enjoy a daily grind wherein you are the primary source of all that is entertaining and edible?

When the first day of school rolls around I shall be doing the happy dance and FINALLY putting a dent in my craft room, in which I havn't crafted one single thing since moving here. Alone time, I await thee.