are we homeschooling if we don't open the books?

My week is turning into one long carpool. Yesterday we only hit the books for an hour before attending All Soul's Day Mass and then back-to-back piano and ballet lessons. Today was worse because due to various arcane rules I have not able to schedule Julia Ellen's 6 month well baby appointment and only by talking directly with the clinic was I able to convince them that denying her care until December was not an option. When I finally talked to a clinician they said the only open appointments were 7am or 9am today. I gulped and picked the later time. This only meant that I had to get all the kids up, dressed, fed, and out the door before 8am to fight the DC traffic instead of 6am. I circled the two available parking lots for 30 minutes trying to find a place to park. After missing my appointment time I called the clinic and they gave me a new appointment an hour later (why couldn't I have gotten that time in the first place?) Finally I pleaded my case to a cop (who was in the process of ticketing an illegally parked SUV), "I have been driving around and around with a baby who needs to nurse and two little boys who need to go potty!" They directed me to a parking lot that I thought was off limits and off we trundled into the building.

The first peds clinic clerk said I was in the wrong place and directed me to the other elevators, "4th floor" but the ones I thought she meant only go up to the 3rd floor. Timmy had the first of 3 morning meltdowns in front of the whole staff and other moms over being able to hog every book we brought but we managed to get through the checkup in record time and then headed downstairs to immunizations. (I won't mention that the elevator made one trip down with 4 children and no mommy) The wait was an hour due to folks getting the flu shot (no H1N1 was available) and finally, after 2 hours we crowded into McDonald's for a much deserved lunch.

Tomorrow we are heading downtown to tour the Capitol through Senator Collins' office while my cousin Ann watches the little boys, followed by lunch at her house. Thursday and Friday we will hopefully squeeze in a little schoolwork in between Scout meetings, American Heritage Girls, and ballet class. Good thing about homeschooling, we can do all those extra activities, the problem is knowing when to say, "enough, no more!"