Revisiting My Most Embarrassing Post (Recycled Edition)

My very first post about homeschooling on this blog consisted of shameful rant against the idea for no other reason than a comment on another blog or Facebook page irritated me.

(For the record, I purposely do not include this post in my collection under the tab Our Homeschooling Journey. It's that bad.)

In my defense, I wrote it in February 2011, the baby days of this blog, and it appears that only 50-ish poor souls were subjected to reading it. 

The snarkfest included, among other points, this paragraph:

Ooh, your poor pathetic Corralled Sheep Children are in that schoolhouse prison while my Free Range Chicken Children paint, and listen to music, and go to the zoo and the museum, and explore the outdoors, and enjoy books and games, and use their imaginations, and travel, and other have fabulous learning experiences without being tied down to a suffocating schedule.

Here's a link to the original, if you'd care to read it in all it's embarrassing glory:

 No Mindless Drones Here, Thanks

Don't mind me . . . I'll be over here huddled up in the corner . . . cringing.

Anywho, needless to say, a lot has changed since then.

I could go on and on about how much my philosophy has changed, and how life is so different now, and the very positive influence that giving homeschooling a chance has made on our lives. 

However, maybe what I really need to say is that I have grown to appreciate that every family will have a view of educating their children that works for them, and it's not my place to evaluate what other people are choosing, whether that is homeschooling, or using an online academy, or private school, or public school, or Waldorf, or Montessori, or curriculum-based, or relaxed, or unschooling, or whatever.

I will still continue to do what works for my Agents and share our experiences along the way, because no matter how (or where) our children learn we really are all in this together.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.

7 Quick Takes Friday (52)

Hello and happy Friday! Hope you all had a great week. 

1. I realized I haven't done a Quick Takes in May yet. Sometimes I get on a roll and participate every week for a long stretch and other times several Fridays in a row sneak up on me and I have nothing prepared. Since my last 7QT I've written about potty learning and the older child (a guest post at Happy House of 5), our experience with sedation dentistry (for Agent A), and some things no one tells you about parenting. Also, Agent E turned seven, I threw in a Wordless Wednesday just for fun, and posted another BookSneeze® book review. Oh, and I published a piece at Connected Mom about saying yes.

2. Are you hearing the hub-bub about the "new" Princess Merida design? Full disclosure, we've never seen the movie, so we have no emotional attachment to this particular character. However, last I checked this is a cartoon, right? As in something you could choose not to watch and/or choose not to purchase merchandise representing it? Hmm.

3. A fellow military homeschooler shared this link about the German family denied asylum (you know the story) and I think it's a terrific explanation of the case.

This is Agent J's why-yes-it-was-absolutely-necessary-to-move-every-
DVD-we-own-into-one-large-pile face

4. Agent A might be the first two-year-old ever who will learn to sing the ABC song backward before forward. He does both, although while singing it forward he tends to start mumbling around S, and backward he tends to lose interest around F. Both Senior Agents can sing/say the alphabet backward as easily as forward. (So can Momma. Where do you think they get this weirdness from?) Oh, we may have had a little help from TMBG.

5. On a related ABC singing note, sometimes when Agent A gets to the letter P, he stops and cheers. Have I mentioned we're doing some potty training?

6. I'm really hoping to get another post up later today about our homeschooling week. It's been a while since I've hooked up with Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers for the Weekly Wrap-Up. (My last one was here.)

7. I've updated the tabs across the top of the blog (again). I think I am finally happy with them. It would be really great if someone would take a look at one of more of them (hint, hint) and let me know if they seem user-friendly and/or if you think anything else should be highlighted there.

Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.

Three Things I Said Yes To This Week

Do you ever find yourself automatically vetoing something the kids want to do, not because it really is a bad idea, but because it might inconvenience you? 

(raises hand)

I'm trying to make a conscious effort to not have a knee-jerk No! reaction when they want to go somewhere, or do something, or even buy something (within financial reason) that I might not be on board with 100%. 

Click over to Connected Mom to read about three simple "yes" examples from our week.

Book Review: Is College Worth It?

Today I'm sharing another BookSneeze® book review. My previous reviews can be found here. If you are a blogger and interested in how you can get free books to review, click here for more info. 

After reviewing two parenting books in a row (and hating both of them . . . you can read about that here and here if you'd like) Is College Worth It? seemed like a nice change of pace. It's written by William J. Bennett (former U.S. Secretary of Education) and David Wilezol.

The very first line of the text: Two-thirds of people who go to four-year colleges right out of high school should do something else.

Let that sink in.

But, but, but . . . college is so important! How else would you secure a good job, a good paycheck, a good life?

Turns out, perhaps a college degree is not the panacea we imagined. Also, it's putting a huge part of the population into suffocating debt. Rather than being a well thought out plan, it is becoming simply a "default activity" of young people everywhere.

The book is divided into five chapters. I found chapter three (So Is It Worth It?) to be the most interesting/valuable of the book. It shatters the conventional wisdom that everyone who can should go to college, offers a realistic view of other options, tackles the issue of "majoring in dead ends," and addresses specific majors/schools by looking at return on investment.

At the end of the book the authors share 12 hypothetical scenarios with their advice and offer a list of schools they feel are worth attending.

A couple of caveats: First, if statistics make you twitch, you may find yourself glazing over a bit, especially in chapter two. Second, the authors are not particularly subtle in their conservative leanings, nor are they kind with their occasional digs against "liberals," which as far as I can tell means anyone who doesn't agree with them. 

In spite of this, the book is a very good read, and I would definitely recommend it to not only high school juniors/seniors and their parents, but anyone considering a life change that might involve higher education. Your eyes will be opened to some things you have not considered, and the book is filled with very specific examples, so one is sure to resonate with your particular situation.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.

Note: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze® book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

5 Things No One Tells You About Parenting

In honor of Mother's Day being celebrated this weekend (in the U.S., Canada, Australia, and most places this is being read, anyway), a short post of a few parenting truths you just don't know until you know. You know?

1. The idea of combining errands to "save time" becomes laughable. Remember when it made perfect sense (and saved gas!) to make all the stops on your to do list in one trip? The new reality is that getting everyone in/out of the car more than twice in one outing qualifies you for the parenting olympics. Keeping control of your sanity while corralling your band of small dictators through more than two destinations in the same morning earns you a gold medal. Our maximum is two events in any given venture, a third only if it doesn't involve getting everyone out of the car (e.g., gas station, drive thru).

2. People will comment on your children. I don't mean the inevitable parenting advice from childless strangers, although that's always barrel-of-monkeys fun, too. I mean that every. single. trip. to the commissary will involve someone asking if your kids in the cart are for sale. (My favorite response to this: Not right now, but ask me again at 8:00 p.m.) And heaven help you when some well-meaning person tells you that your offspring are well-behaved. That, folks, is a sure ticket to Insanity Alley at some point in the next few hours.

My three loves, in their element

3. You will take everything involving kids, even those you've never met, personally. You will constantly think that could be my kid. Tragedies on the news tug at you harder. Commercials will make you cry. Reading a touching story online will have the ability to reduce you to mush. Anything dealing with children—positive or negative, happy or sad—will affect you on some inexplicable, visceral level.

4. You will find your inner rock star/voice-over talent. Kids respond well to song, especially during transition times. And they don't care what you sound like. A song and the ability to do silly voices will carry you far. (Well, when your children are young, anyway. Once they are older you cross the line from fun into embarrassing, and that's a whole other story.) Personally, I happen to have the worst singing voice ever. But I do a mean Clarabelle Cow imitation. And that skill is priceless at say, teeth-brushing time. 

5. Words will come out of your mouth that you never dreamed possible. Here's just a small sample of things I have said to my own children: 

• Don't eat that crayon; I just brushed your teeth. 
• Get out of the bidet; it's not a water fountain. 
• Everyone help clean up. Start by eating these Cheerios on the floor. 
• No one is allowed to touch anyone else's butt. It's a rule.
• Don't lick your siblings. That's also a rule.
• Yes; you have to wear underwear.

Have a wonderful weekend, my fellow mommas.

Thanks for reading and have a blessed day.