Like I Have Time For This?

Here’s the living room after we watched a video on Ancient Egypt:

And I should point out that we cleaned this room up completely last night. And this is what happened after one video.

And here’s a nice pile of laundry that’s been accumulating next to the basement door:

But hey — at least the handwriting books finally showed up.

And hey now…wait a minute…wait a minute…wait just a damn minute!…What’s THIS?

Ahh…the world map. And there we are.

Any questions?

And then, on the second day of school, we actually sat down and got some work done. We did almost a full day, some subjects being shorter than usual since it’s mostly review. A full day, for us, is not more than 3 hours. It would really only take about 2 hours to get our work done except for the All-Important DAWDLE FACTOR.

Dawdle Factor is some sort of DNA structure that we’re born with and don’t lose until we become parents ourselves, at which point we realize just exactly how frustrated our own parents must have been when we were young. Let’s just imagine, for one minute (because we really only have one spare minute, if at all), the hours of childhood that we’ve all wasted just looking for our shoes while our mothers waited by the door, foot tapping exasperatedly. And now, we are the ones who wait impatiently, keys in hand, with the litany I-won’t-help-look-this-time…I-won’t…I-won’t…I-WON’T! running through our heads, knowing full well that in a few minutes we’ll be tossing the keys and the purse on the table to go show the kids just exactly how to lift up the damp bath towels on the floor to check if shoes are hidden underneath.

Depressing, isn’t it?

But now, I want you to imagine yourself 20 years in the future, sitting on a beach somewhere holding your favorite drink and your favorite book, and you’ve just turned off your cellphone because your kid just tried to call you to complain about how her kids just simply cannot find their shoes.

Feel better? Good. Me too.

In all, it was a good day back to the books. We’ve never taken so much time off at once before, and it’s amazing how quickly I had forgotten how it all piles up on you when you’re homeschooling. The mess. The stalling. The handwriting books that still haven’t arrived. The bored 4-year-old. I’d take a picture of how the living room looks right now, but I’m just too damned tired.

But we keep on keepin’ on, because we know deep in our hearts that the house won’t always look like this. And we know we’re doing the best we can. And above all, we’re pretty much guaranteed that as long as we persevere in our homeschooling endeavors, our daughters will never, EVER, sound like this:

It’s a brand new year, everybody. Here’s hoping you get yourselves some maps!