It really does seem like we've been doing this for a while. The one big thing I'm figuring out is that we don't have a set school day. Sure, we start at 8:30 am, and try to do all our core classes in the morning, but over all we teach/learn/experience life, the world around us, and our lessons to all day long. It's kinda a different way of thinking for us. We have always been set routine people. We have always followed our chaotic schedule like clockwork. Living the life we now live, breaks the mold. It takes everything I hold near and dear (Time, schedules, lists) and throws them out the window. It's teaching us to live in the here and now. It's showing us that like a newborn baby, it simply hasn't read the schedule we carefully researched and laid out for her. It's saying "Walk with me, I'll show you a life you never thought possible.... never dared to dream you could live." And I must confess, so far I LIKE IT! I like this life that breaks free from the boundaries of time and constraints. I like that if Brielle's having a rough day and cant handle Language Arts in the morning we can move to something else and come back to it later. I like to see my big strong husband, our provider, say his brain hurts from helping Cailynn with a 30 minute "Live Lesson" on the words that start with "P"! I feel that now that we've broken out of the "mold" we were being poured into, now that we've "unconformed" and started the life we feel called to, we are being liberated.
Dont' get me wrong, I had visions. I had goals. I had ideas. I had DREAMS of how this was going to go (get up, get dressed, make your beds, eat breakfast, get started at 8:30, do the calendar time, start lessons and work diligently until 12:30 where we would then break for lunch, have "gym" and "Art" and all sorts of other fun adventures (library time, zoo time, science center time) all in the umbrella of "SCHOOL"! I was so wrong. We are rarely done by 12:30. In fact as we "speak", it's 2:20 and Brielle is working on her spelling words. I had visions of all the time "wasted" in the B&M school, and how I could somehow do it "better". Time management is something I'm good at. It's something I excel at, and its something that my kids just seem to laugh at.
So the breakdown for the second week of school coming to an end (we started Thursday 2/15). We are getting in a grove. The multiple books no longer send us into cold sweats thinking about it. The thought that we might be warping our kids and they'll fall behind is slowly fading. This new norm is fun, it's exciting, its liberating, and we are learning right along side our kids. So right now I'm feeling like "well yes, Yes, YES we CAN have it all!"
