The Beginning of Another Crazy Chapter-Our Homeschool

Today was the first day of our 'homeschooling' adventure and I'll just say...a day full of trial and error, mostly error, led to Savanah spending a good part of the day in her room and the 'teacher' in tears.  WOW, not what I was hoping for much less expecting but hey...the life of hands on parenting at it's finest. 

I'd like to go into describing our day so I'll start with my so called 'schedule'.  Ha, that's a joke at least in this 'homeschool'.  That silly thing ended up in the trash by 9.  Maybe we'll come back to a schedule when the kids are old enough to read a schedule, until then...no stinkin' schedule.  So, we began by going through the calender primarily getting familiar with day of the week, today's date, the time and so on.  Then we moved onto bible.  Unfortunately, I'm not completely impressed with the bible curriculum I picked out.  It received great reviews, however, I'm discovering reviews are becoming quite untrustworthy these days.  Math was next and Savanah was actually pretty excited about that...one trait she received from her father's DNA.  Oh, I've forgotten to mention, the entire time I'm trying to do "school" with Savanah, Bowen is running around like a crazy banchie pulling books off shelves, sitting in "sissy's" seat every chance he gets, doing everything he can to annoy both student and teacher, etc.  Once again, I had falsely fantasized about him playing happily and independently in the giant playroom he has at his disposal.  And again, that turned out to be something I hope to laugh about some day.  After math, we were all in dire need of  break/snack time.  What was intended to be a brief 10-15 min break turned into a less than stellar 3 hours on all of our parts.  I'm going to do my best not to relive that part of our day so I'll move on. 

One major thing I learned today (thanks to the schedule hanging out in it's appropriate location...the trash) was there was no way we were going to fit the majority of our schooling into the morning.  So, once Bowen went down for his nap, Savanah and I went back to our "classroom" (needs a new name) and finished our day with Phonics, Handwriting and Science.  Another epiphany I had throughout the day is the need to change the name from 'homeschooling' to something without the word 'school' tied to it.  In my mind, school looks a certain way.  No matter how many times I've read from experienced homeschooling mom's that every 'homeschool' looks different...I can't get what I know of 'schooling' out of my head.

I want to say, THANK GOD for my extremely gracious gift of a husband.  As usual, he is my level head, my sail, my voice of reason.  And thank God he looks to God and allows Him to lead.  Today I questioned everything about everything.  That's just the best and only way I can describe it.  Then comes my conversation with Ben.  He first tried his hand at giving me advice...NOT what I needed nor wanted.  Once it was clear he would get nowhere offering advice, he wisely turned to support, love, grace, offered a listening ear and a nonjudgmental response and a gave me a very gentle reminder that we truly ARE doing the right thing.

At the end of today I feel completely broken but somehow I know that's exactly where God wants me.  He wants to lead and when I try to control everything He, in His sovereignty, knows I don't budge at gentle reminders...He knows I need more of a swift kick to the gut.  He doesn't make mistakes and I don't believe He led us down this path to mislead us.  So, my job is to trust.  Way easier said than done.  After some confession and repentence, tomorrow is a clean slate.  Thank you, Lord, that you give us a clean slate. Please help me to show that grace to my daughter.