chaos

The saying, "You never know how much you have until you have lost it," has certainly struck home this week.  Homeschoolers have so much freedom in their daily lives to get up when they wish, start school when they want, and have their lives centered around their family, rather than around other's schedules. For 9 years we were able to sign the children up for multiple activities because their schoolwork could be completed by mid afternoon most days and they didn't have homework to interfere with evening events. 

Now our days begin with 5:40 revilie, followed by the van driving away at 7am. I do have a lot more time now to work with the boys on their schoolwork without the big kids monopolizing all my attention, so we do play many games and they have more educational computer time. But our afternoons are complete chaos. Last Tuesday was a good example with having to pick up the 3 big ones at 2:40, drive them 25 minutes to their soccer games, pull Will out just after the first half and drive like a mad woman back home to get him to piano lessons at 6:15 (he was still 15 minutes late). Then I had to fix dinner for everyone else and the poor kid was still doing homework at 9pm, when my eyes closed for the night. We have piano lessons for various children 3 evenings a week, Boy Scouts on Wednesday, Cub Scouts on Thursday, and Tim takes over on an occasional Monday so I can go to quilt group. I have spent over $100 in gas this week just to drive everyone up and back to Bangor 2-3 times a day. 

There isn't any activity I am willing to give up right this moment and soccer only lasts another 3 weeks or so. But it has been quite an adjustment going from staying home and doing school in our jammies to being like the Zizzer-Zoof salesmen in Dr. Seuss' Sleep Book,
  

 "All day they've raced around in the heat, at top speeds, Unsuccessfully trying to sell Zizzer-Zoof Seeds Which nobody wants because nobody needs. Tomorrow will come. They'll go back to their chore. They'll start on the road, Zizzer-Zoofing once more."