Weekly Wrap-Up: The last one in which I have a kid who’s not a teen

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Weekly Wrap-Up

Happy Friday, y’all! It’s been an interesting, roller coaster week here. Last weekend was good. Josh had another music performance. This one was at his school, held as a fundraiser. It was much better than last year’s fundraiser based on no other criteria than the fact that it was held in September instead of July. Read: It was much cooler.

It was also more enjoyable for us because Josh got to play on more songs. He plays guitar, mainly, but some drums. I love listening to him play, whichever instrument he chooses.

Josh on guitar

Monday. Oh, Monday. It was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day. The worst in years. School was pulled into it and became part of the problem, but it really wasn’t about school. I had this to say about it on my Facebook page:

If you’ve seen a couple of my status updates, you know that yesterday was an absolutely horrible day. I was tagged 3 different times in a post from a lady at church, asking about homeschooling. I ignored all of them. It was really not the day to ask me about homeschooling, even though the stuff that made the day horrible wasn’t, at its core, about school at all.

 

Today, though, I had this to say: “Yesterday was a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day in which I wound up online looking up what would be involved in enrolling my kids in school. Thankfully, those days are few and far between. Seriously, it’s been years since we’ve had a day that bad and it really wasn’t about school. Even as I was considering the school route, I knew in my heart it was absolutely not what I really wanted to do.

 

I guess all that to say, homeschooling isn’t all rainbows and unicorns. It’s hard. There are nights when I can’t sleep for worrying. There are days when I’m convinced that it was a terrible decision, but when the dust settles and the tears (mine) stop, I know there is nothing else I’d rather be doing.”

 

That’s the honest truth, y’all. Just for the record, the kids have no desire to go to public school and my graduate has no regrets.

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The color is terrible, but this was my prescription for a much better Tuesday: A run to strengthen the body and clear the mind. God’s Word to feed the soul. And sweet tea because…well, just because it makes me happy.

Thankfully, the rest of the week has been much better – which is good since it would have had to try really hard to be worse. We’ve spent some time reviewing mitosis this week since the kids quiz scores weren’t as good as I’d have hoped. I’ve heard that our biology text gets a bit easier after this unit. I just want to make sure the kids understand the highlights.

I found this helpful mitosis worksheet online that seemed to help. We also had a lot of fun using eQuizShow, which lets users create their own Jeopardy-style boards for review. That was possibly made more fun by the incentive I offered – a Chick-Fil-A ice cream with a minimum combined score.

Yesterday, we finally made it to the meiosis chapter. Let me just say, talking about sex cells with a middle school kid results in much giggling and blushing. No, it wasn’t me.

We’re in Week 1 of Unit 2 in our Ancient Civilizations and The Bible. Week 1 involves a lot of reading and listening to CDs, but I think I’ve done a much better job of spreading it out this time. Listening to a track or two before lunch and the rest after has really helped, I think. It helps that the information on the CDs is really interesting.

This weekend is a big deal. On Sunday, I will officially be a mom to a houseful of teens. My baby turns 13. Megan is kind of my mini-me. She looks the most like me and, like me, has lots of words. She enjoys writing (when it’s not assigned) and reading (I never thought that would happen). She loves gymnastics and can’t wait to make team. She’s recently decided to give softball another shot.

She can’t wait to wear make-up and really wants to dye her hair with pink, purple, and blue streaks. I’m sure I’ll have a photo of that soon.

birthday girl

I’ve noticed a weird phenomenon with both Josh and Megan. It’s not that I want to hurry the years along – they go by quickly enough without any help from me – but with both of them, I found that I was excited for them to turn 13 because I’d already thought of them as teens for so long. Josh has always looked older than he is and Megan – well, I guess she’s wanted to be 13 for so long that I’m excited for her. It should be a fun weekend!

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Kris Bales is a newly-retired homeschool mom and the quirky, Christ-following, painfully honest founder (and former owner) of Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers. She has a pretty serious addiction to sweet tea and Words with Friends. Kris and her husband of over 30 years are parents to three amazing homeschool grads. They share their home with three dogs, two cats, a ball python, a bearded dragon, and seven birds.

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17 Comments

  1. I’m sorry you had such a rotten start to the week. I had one last week which resulted in tears (mine) and thoughts of school. This week has been one of our best for ages and I am horrified I even contemplated school. We’re learning about building our life on the rock of God in our family bible and I can really see how important that is in the ups and downs of home schooling.
    Please wish Megan a happy birthday, 13 is such a special age to be!

    1. Thank you for the birthday wishes! I’m sorry you had one of those bad days last week. They’re terrible. Thankfully, they don’t occur very often.

  2. I always love reading about your weeks! We have a birthday this weekend as well, though she’s turning 6 (and it’s on Saturday instead of Sunday). I love our teens (though they’re not often with us) but am glad the whole house isn’t full of them every day LOL my pre-teen, 9, and 6 year olds are old enough for me to deal with attitude wise right now

  3. I know how you feel. I seem to have one of “those” days at least once every school year. I always look back and see how it could have been avoided and it’s very often for the same reason. Why I don’t see this in the moment, I may never know. Perhaps it is God’s grace, always reminding us that he is in control and just giving us a 1 day reminder. Ha!

    1. Isn’t it always some simple thing that could have diffused the whole situation? We probably do need a reminder every now and then.

  4. No wrap up posts for me to share, but just wanted to let you know I appreciate you sharing when your days don’t go as planned. I have too many of these and sometimes start to question our decision to homeschool, even though we’ve been doing it for 12 years now. My youngest will be turning 13 next month, but he’s a boy and has no desire to dye his hair bright colors;) It’s definitely a different dynamic having only teens in the house, isn’t it? Have a great weekend!

    1. Those days are rough. It’s nice to know that I’m not alone – though I wouldn’t wish one of those days on anyone. I’m sure all parents have them. It’s just adding homeschooling into the mix that can make you question everything, I think. Yes, definitely a different dynamic with teens, but I love…most days.

      1. I feel like I’m alone at times too. That’s why I love when other moms feel like they can share real moments on their blogs and social media. It always encourages me to hear about other homeschooling families, whether they’ve had a good day or not. Hope your weekend has been restful!

  5. Sorry you had such a rough start to the week. It sounds like you had a good plan to help out on Tuesday. If you’d just added a little chocolate, it would have been a perfect day 🙂

    Happy Birthday to Megan! Finally a teenage. My daughter will be 13 in January and has the days counted down already. She’s my only child and I’m not exactly looking forward to this age.

  6. Good evening.
    I came across your blog as a result of reading a post which another blogger had linked up to my linky – if that makes sense:)

    I am delighted to meet other home educators and wanted to stop by and say ‘hi’ from across the pond.

    I have linked up my post from earlier this week which gives an insight into the types of activities I do with our local HE group. I hope that it is suitable.

    I would be so pleased to have a few more home schoolers pop over and say hello as we have lots to learn from each other I hope.

    Thanks so much for hosting this.

  7. I can’t wait to see crazy hair colors but don’t tell my girl! lol She is looking forward to turning 13 next JUne as she gets her own cell phone then. I love having older children although some days I start to question my own sanity.

  8. Happy Birthday to your daughter! I still have two non teens (and two teens), so I know the day is coming that they’ll all be there. I’m sort of in denial, though.

    I think it’s good that you’re honest about homeschooling. It’s not always easy. I’ve also had those moments that I dreamed of putting them all in school. But, it’s true that when I can step back and breathe, I know we’re doing the right thing, and I wouldn’t change it for anything, 🙂

  9. What a ‘real’ post. Some days are exactly like that. I have, unfortunately, resorted to the ‘you’re going to public school’ threat even though I never, ever would. I think she knows that too. I am about to search your blog to see what Ancient History program you are using. Keilee wanted to do that this year, as a 9th grader, and I had the hardest time finding one. We finally decided on Susan Wise Bauer’s History of Ancient Civilizations. It has an audio too. Happy Birthday to your ’13’ year old!

  10. I can completely relate to those days. My week started great and ended with me having a complete meltdown. Yeah, I thought of the ps route too (and it also had absolutely NOTHING to do with our homeschool) but when it’s all said and done, I wouldn’t trade what I’m doing either. It’s just nice to know that “real” people homeschool and not just poster families where every day is perfect.

  11. Same here – I was excited for my daughter to turn 13 not for myself, but because it was a big deal to her. And her 13th birthday present was going to the salon to get a blue streak put in her hair, so I guess that’s a common desire among new teenagers. 🙂

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