Skip to main content

24 Days of Thankfulness: Day 9

Today Keeleigh called me into her room excitedly. She had a big orange balloon in her hand and said, "Look! The light is passing through it and it's just like our eye. The image is upside down on the other side of the balloon." Indeed it was. And this made me so excited.

I am a big-time homeschooling advocate. I love it (98.5% of the time). I believe in it but I don't always believe in myself. Sometimes when the doctor asks Jathan how old he is and he replies, "I don't know," I leave out that part about us homeschooling. Sometimes when Keeleigh sits staring at her language book for an hour claiming to have no idea how to form simple sentences, I wonder if it's me. Am I screwing them up?

But then! Then we have glorious moments when they see science inside of a random balloon! There was also a shining moment in math the other day when I understood the rule but not the concept behind the rule (it had to do with decimal place value). Keeleigh and I sat and studied it for a moment and then she said, "Oh, I get it." Then she proceeded to explain how it ties in with exponents and the fact that 10 to the 0 power equals 1. It was kind of awesome.

I read a quote from someone's FB status update last week that said, "True leaders don't create followers; they create more leaders." They asked, "What about your children? Are they merely following you, or are they passing you?" When Keeleigh got that math concept, I told her, "You're smarter than me!" That's a great thing! I hope I always empower my children to surpass me and my abilities and to be leaders themselves.  A friend told me a while back that she didn't want to home school because she looked at the homework her daughter brought home and didn't think she could do it. I tried to explain that I certainly don't have all the answers. I don't have a natural passion for math or science. But I do have a passion for my children. So sometimes we figure things out together. I've also been eager to see some good results come from our new curriculum choice. I felt like I was going out on a limb this year not using text books for science or history but time and again I've seen evidence that it's working! 


I am so thankful that we have been blessed with the opportunity home school! Thank You, God, for these affirming moments!

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

5 Reasons I Should Stay Off Facebook

1. TMI So, I remember the weirdest things but one brief conversation I had over 10 years ago stands out to me. It was high school and like all high school girls I had friends, enemies, and frienemies. One of my then-frienemies (we've grown up since then!) was friends with one of my enemies. Standing by the lockers one day, frienemy walks up and says in reference to enemy something like, "She shares too much information. Sometimes it's almost like, 'Hey, guys. I just farted.'" Of course, at the time I ate this up and laughed at her expense but over the years it's been a little reminder that more often than not I need to shut up. Just shut up. I've often been tempted (and have too often given in to the temptation) to over share. I think the Internet feels far safer than it really is. I need to remember that. 2. Friends...or Stalkers? Speaking of "friends", I have 321 of them. I know that number is much higher for many of you, but

Why We're Moving to ALASKA

8 years ago at around this time Jackie was graduating from seminary after 5 years of being in New Orleans. We were excited and full of hope. It felt like after years of preparation our lives were now going to REALLY begin!  The seminary had hosted a sort of ministry fair for students to meet with representatives from across the United States. Jackie talked to me about which state representatives he’d like to talk with as we planned our perfect life out in our heads (HA!). He mentioned Alaska which I quickly vetoed; we thought it would be lovely to live near the mountains somewhere out west—maybe Colorado? Montana? However, I went back and told him to talk to the Alaska guy if he wanted to because I didn’t think it was right that I should tell him no. I don’t remember all the states he inquired about that day. I remember him bringing home a memo pad that said West Virginia on it, and I remember him talking ALL ABOUT ALASKA.  Now when God speaks to me I unfortunately do not have a light

Piper's Birth Story

My entire fourth pregnancy had been different than any other. I didn't have one bit of morning sickness and my baby bump didn't "pop" for months and months. At each of my first and second trimester doctor appointments my blood pressure was absolutely perfect. While I knew that whatever would happen would happen, I held out hope that the uniqueness of this pregnancy would extend into the third trimester and birth--that I would not have pre-eclampsia for the first time and that I would have the experience of going into labor on my own. At my doctor's appointment, one day before the 37 week mark, the nurse frowned as she took my pressure. It was 140/100. She took it again and the doctor took it and then they sent me to the hospital for an evaluation which included serial blood pressure readings and various tests. All the tests came back "stone-cold normal" as my doctor put it. I did not have pre-eclampsia. But the doctor did suggest I take it easy and try