Smrt Lernins

Today’s question is from an anonymous commenter on Formspring. S/he asks, “How do you find time for your relationship with your husband when you’re so busy with your kids? In a world where divorce is common, how do you keep that spark there? What do you talk about in the evenings? Do you ever find homeschooling consumes you entirely?”

What? What’s that you say? I can’t hear you, as homeschooling has eaten my head. *crunch crunch*

In all honesty, homeschooling does sometimes consume me entirely. It takes up most of my morning and afternoon. Planning takes up a portion of my evenings. Homeschooling certainly takes up a large percentage of my thoughts. I spent a neat little chunk of time writing about homeschooling.

Homeschooling hasn’t been the biggest stumbling block in our marriage this past year+, though. The thing that has really been draining is parenting in general. I have spent the last five straight years pregnant, breastfeeding, or a combination of the two. We have three children, ranging in age from 17 months to almost ten, plus a beagle. Someone always wants something from me. I’m tired and drained, physically, mentally, and emotionally, much of the time. I’m tired of people touching me. I have stints of a lot of anxiety, both generalized and specific. I can’t use the bathroom without a pottience or someone banging on the door, hollering through the door, sniffing and scratching at the door, crying “Mama! Mama! Mama!” outside the door, or getting into a fight downstairs. We’ve had one or more small people sleeping in our bed with us for the last four years. Mix that up with Officer Daddyman’s work (very late nights) and the homeschooling in the morning, and sometimes it does feel like the whole world, or at least the portion of it occupied by our children, is trying to come between us.

Keeping the spark is hard. A lot of the time, I couldn’t care less about the spark. I’m starved for a few minutes of intelligent adult conversation far more than I’m starved for romance. I sometimes trend towards not making enough effort, because I’m just too lacking in energy to care. Even in the less sparkful times, however, I always find Daddyman interesting. I like talking to him. I’m interested in what he has to say, whether it’s stories from work or explanations of a game system he’s working on. I like how he seems interested in all the probably-boring stuff I did during my day. I stay up almost every night until he gets home, even if that means forgoing a couple extra hours of sleep that I probably need. We spend a little time talking, maybe watch an episode of whatever show we’re watching on Netflix (right now it’s Studio 60 on Sunset Strip), maybe eat a little snack. Sometimes we have Quality Adult Time™ together. Sometimes we just have time together.

We have periods when we spend a lot of time together, periods where we drift too often to our separate computers, but mostly, I like Daddyman more than I like just about anybody else, and he seems to like me pretty well, and I think that’s what keeps us going. I like parenting with him, having general life stuff with him, having conversation (however trivial) with him. We actively work on getting it together and keeping it together. We’re honest with each other and we try to lay it all out there so nothing is hiding, building up resentment. Every once in a while, we have great big fights and great big make-ups, and that’s always nice, too, in the long run. It’s a work in progress, but I think any good marriage is. I want to keep working to find ways to make it better. I want to keep working to find ways to not just keep the spark, but to want to keep the spark. I see us making a lot of improvement in that area. I think it will keep getting easier.

Ultimately, I don’t think homeschooling is any more (and probably less) of problem in our marriage than any thing else. It’s a common interest and a shared project, and it means we’ll nearly always have something to talk about.

First world problems alert: my internet has been down for almost a week* and, with homeschool starting on Monday, I’m starting to panic a little. Two of Captain Science’s classes (computer programming and science) and one he and Tank are sharing (art) are online. We still have some pieces of curricula to order. We need to sign up for the homeschool soccer league. We might sign up for classes at a local co-op (since we aren’t hosting one this semester, a nice respite). We need more consistent internet for this kind of stuff!

Officer Daddyman made a rather irritable comment to me the other night, being a bit tired of hearing me carry on about how inconvenienced I am, about people having survived just fine before the internet. Of course, the same could be said for, say, refrigeration (did I mention our fridge was also on the fritz?) and telephones (oh yeah, same electrical storm that fried our internet killed our phones) and electric lights (our house gremlin has been blowing those like crazy, too) and air conditioning (thankfully, this still works, though with 100 degree outside temperatures, it’s not making too much of a dent in the heat). Once you’ve become accustomed to and built certain facets of your life around access to those things, however, having them suddenly take flight into the wimbly ether is rather…fraktastic. Can’t put it more eloquently or eruditely (or less geekily) than that.

More than the resources, however, I miss the “s word.” Socialization. We usually worry about our kids getting enough, but as a in-the-home-all-day Mama (because I don’t like that whole “work at home” vs. “stay at home” thing…all mamas work), I often pine for some adult time. Chatting online with Patchfire and The Mama and my other homeschooling (and non-homeschooling) mama friends is an important part of my life. It’s a way of swapping ideas and just generally staying sane. It’s lonely at 11pm when Daddyman is at work and I want the house to stay quiet (so no phone calls), but I can’t talk to someone online, read any news, listen to any new music, etc.

*sigh* Hopefully, we’ll have internet by Monday, because how on earth can I go without blogging about our first day of school? Oh internet! I don’t know how to quit you.

*I’m swiping a little wireless from my grandmother while drinking a glass of wine.

Five years ago, this man…

And this woman…

Did this…

And then this…

And now five years later, we have these guys…

And now, we are a family of FIVE.

Happy Anniversary, Officer Daddyman. I love you way more than five. I love you 80-90.

I have a t-shirt from Old Navy that says “so red hot” on it, with little hearts inside the letters. I bought it because I liked the pinky-red color (if you haven’t noticed, I like pink) and because it was deeply discounted to $2, since it was leftover from Valentine’s Day. When I bought it, I did a little second guessing about whether the shirt was even appropriate for a 30-something mother of three, but at the end of the day, it’s just a shirt, right? It’s cute and it’s just a shirt.

I was coming out of the Publix today, wearing this shirt, as two guys were walking in. They were probably around 25, looked like the kind of guys who probably have a lot of Korn and Insane Clown Posse on their iPods, were wearing baseball hats, sleeveless shirts, and cutoff jeans, had slightly too long goatees and lots of tattoos, and walked with that swagger those kind of guys often seem to have.

One of the looks at me, coming out of the Publix with my “so red hot” t-shirt and my bags of groceries, kind of shakes his head a little, and says, “No. You’re not.”

I hadn’t said anything to these guys. I had smiled at them a little, because I usually smile at people when I pass them going into or out of a building. I didn’t do anything to invite a comment like this. It was pure, unsolicited meanness.

I know what I am and I know what I look like. I know I don’t look like a supermodel. I’m a tad on the overweight side of things. I’m in my thirties, have three kids, and look it. I am probably a lot more likely to have someone tell me “You look tired” than “You look hot.”

I wasn’t aware that those things were a crime, though. I didn’t know that being those things while wearing a t-shirt with a silly slogan was on par with soliciting an insult. Who on earth raised this man, that he thought it was ok to speak like that to a strange woman, to any woman, to any person? Did someone let him grow up believing that it was his God-given right to insult a woman whose looks don’t meet his idea if “hot” or did he decide that on his own, somewhere along the way? Is he just another product of our woman-objectifying culture*?

I wish I could say I responded wittily or put him in his place or even slapped him across his rude mouth. I didn’t. Instead, I just walked to my car, stung and slightly embarrassed.

*Watch this video if you haven’t seen it before. It’s good.

I always think I’ll drink a third cup of coffee in the morning. Coffee is an important part of my day, especially my homeschool day, because it gives me a personality and enthusiasm. The third cup of coffee is a goal for which I strive daily. I fix an 8-cup pot in the morning, which pours just slightly over three of my Longaberger coffee mugs. The pink coffee mug holds a central role on my desk.

Despite my love for coffee, however, I seldom get around to drinking that third cup of coffee. In fact, the two I do drink tend to be rather tepid before I finish them. This is partially by design — I don’t like my coffee scalding hot anyway, and the kids have a bad habit of knocking my coffee all over themselves or my lap, so I put an ice cube into it as soon as I pour it — but partially because someone is always interrupting my coffee-drinking.

By the time I finally get around to that third cup of morning coffee, the coffee has started to burn in the pot and it’s noon and too close to afternoon coffee time to fix another pot of coffee, because preparing three pots of coffee before 3pm just makes it look like I have a problem. Sometimes I try to get around all of this by pouring the extra cup into a go-cup and stashing it elsewhere, but it inevitably ends up ice cold and barely sipped. A waste of two scoops of coffee grounds. A waste of a perfectly good cup of coffee.

Today is one of those rare days when I actually managed to pour the third cup. It sits, unfinished, on my desk, room temperature. I’m drinking it anyway, because sometimes, even a small a win is still a win.

I’m the errant Smrt Mama, who went away to Chicago and almost didn’t make it back.

Ok, that’s overstating it just a teensy bit, but I did go to Chicago (to visit my oldest friend and her brand new baby) and I did encounter an ever-so-slight problem with my return flight, in that my typically brilliant husband made a less-than-brilliant error in booking my return flight, and booked it FROM my city of origin and TO Chicago, which is less than helpful if I’m already in Chicago. Luckily, he got me onto a flight the very next day, and after 24 hours of not speaking to him, we’ve made a pleasant peace…based on the promise that he cannot get mad at me if I ever do something really dumb, like misplace his car for 24 hours.

Does anyone know where I could hide a car for 24 hours?

All this travel means that I wasn’t actually present for Captain Science’s final five days of “school” (which were about as educational as the last five days of public school, if you catch my drift) or for the Tank’s final school performance. While I can’t make up for missing Tank’s show, I can make up for the last five school days, which I plan to do this week through field trips and general fun. Does a trip to the Georgia Renaissance Festival count as a history lesson? If so, Captain Science is getting two history lessons, as he went w/ his uncle on Saturday and is going again on Sunday.

I’m working on my end of the year reviews, one for Captain Science (for record-keeping) and one for me (so you can point and laugh). Hopefully will get those up soon. All in all, I have to quote Tori Amos and call this a “pretty good year.”

I have not forgotten the “You Look Like a Homeschooler” contest, y’all. The pneumonia threw me off track and I have to get the prizes assembled, but will announce the winners in short order.

Today is National Teacher Day, which comes, somewhat predictably, in the middle of National Teacher Appreciation Week.

As homeschoolers, we are each our child(ren)’s teacher…excepting those unschoolers who eschew the word “teach,” of course. I’d like to take a moment to tell you teachers-in-your-own home how much I appreciate you.

Homeschooling isn’t easy. You do it anyway.

Your day isn’t done at 3 o’clock or even 6 o’clock — it’s not done until your children are all tucked in bed, and even then, you often stay up for hours going on plans for the following day or preparing for the weeks and months ahead. You don’t get summer vacation. You don’t get a two-week break at Christmas. You can’t draw a line between your job and your personal life. You can’t walk away from the work and the children when the day is done. You do it anyway.

You don’t get paid to do this. You don’t draw a salary and you don’t get a pension at the end. Your “salary” is intellectual growth of your children. Your “pension” is the well-adjusted, well-educated adults you have raised. Your “benefits” aren’t in the form of health insurance and paid leave, but in the amount of quality you spend with your child. The nest egg you’re building for the future isn’t financial. You do it anyway.

You don’t have a union. You have to scrap out the support where you can find it, through online forums or local homeschool groups. You have to be your own advocate, figure things out on your own, or ask for help from others like you. It can be an uphill battle the whole way. You do it anyway.

You don’t have a mandate from the State. You may even be at great odds with your state by choosing to homeschool. You fill out forms, jump through hoops, and then fill out more forms about jumping through hoops. You may have to put your family and your life up for scrutiny for someone else’s determination of whether you’re fit to homeschool. You do it anyway.

You don’t have someone developing an approved curriculum for you, setting academic standards for you, or giving you the exact information your children should learn. You don’t have it that easy. You have to figure it out on your own. You can’t just teach to the test, satisfied that the test scores will be the end to justify your means. You have to determine what you can use, what you can afford, what standards you will set for your children. You have to find a way to teach them everything they need to know for college and for life. You’ll probably miss a few things, and you agonize over which things you’ll miss. You do it anyway.

You don’t do it “their” way. Your job isn’t always respected. You don’t get special license plates. When someone asks you, “What do you do for a living?” your answer often isn’t what they want to hear. You’re subjected to a rigorous line of questioning about what you do and what you teach and why. Your motives are suspect. Your methods are scrutinized. Your rigor is challenged. You do it anyway.

Day in and day out, you do it anyway. You continue to educate your children, despite others’ misgiving, despite criticism and unwanted commentary. You invest time, money, and energy that you may not actually have in making sure your children have a thorough, meaningful education. You reach out to others like you and offer them help, advice, materials, support. You raise your children with character and creativity.

You’re homeschoolers. You don’t give up. You do it anyway.

Happy Teacher Appreciate Day, to my community of wonderful home-teachers. You’re loved. You’re appreciated.

Once upon a time, there was a mom named Smrt Mama, with three lovely children, one of whom was unhappily public-schooled. She was miserable, her child was miserable, but she lacked the self-confidence and knowledge to make the leap to homeschooling. She was homeschool-curious, but didn’t know where to start, how to start, if to start.

Then there was Patchfire, and she was good. She placed The Well Trained Mind into Smrt Mama’s hand. She walked Smrt Mama and Officer Daddyman through curricula and scheduling. She gave Smrt Mama books on the philosophical workings of homeschooling. She gave Smrt Mama curricula to get started. She answered questions with infinite patience and she agreed to teach science classes to Captain Science.

One day, Patchfire fell in love with a house. The house was beautiful, had many bedrooms, had a completely finished basement with full second kitchen, and, miracle of miracles, was in the neighborhood right behind Smrt Mama’s. The children could walk to each other’s houses. Smrt Mama and Patchfire could co-op chickens (at Smrt Mama’s, on her half-acre) and vegetables (at Patchfire’s, in her flat, sunny, already-garden-plotted backyard) together. The house was perfect in every way, and Patchfire and Smrt Mama rejoiced.

Now there is but once catch: Patchfire’s old house must sell so that she and all the Mitnens (that’s what we call them, since Tank says “Mitnen” for Mister and Missus, and they’re Mitnen Ham and Mitnen Tash) can move into The House of All Things Good.

Here is what Smrt Mama needs from you: She needs you to pray, light candles, vibrate on a higher frequency, send positive thoughts out into the universe, or just plain old think good thoughts for Patchfire and the rest of the Mitnens to sell their house quickly and easily, so that they can move into the house that’s just through the woods from my house.

I love Patchfire. I (in a very platonic way) love her husband. I adore her children. My children adore her children. My husband likes them all is his stolith* manly cop way. She must be within walking distance of me. This is absolutely imperative. Please send the Great Universal/Divine Love her way.

*My awesome Japanese friend Ai made up this word. We think it means a cross between stoic and stolid. She says, “The Japanese are so stolith. They don’t know how to have any fun.”

Lo, so many times doth I find myself declaring thusly, “This is why I homeschool!”

Today, at Olan Mills photography, the photographer argued with me over comma placement in the title on a photograph collage. The main picture was of all three of my beautiful, talented, and delightful children (whose behavior while Nana and I looked at photo proofs was such that they are lucky I did not devour them on the spot like a disgruntled hamster), with one small photo of Tank and Captain Science and one small photo of Babypie below. The collage was captioned “Captain Science, Tank & Babypie.”

I protested the lack of Oxford comma between “Tank” and “&” (the “&” was necessary in lieu of “and,” due to the length of Tank’s real name), only to have the photographer tell me, “No, that’s right. I thought it was supposed to be the way you’re saying it, but an English teacher was in here the other day and said this is the right way.”

I responded, “Well, I have a master’s degree in writing and editing. I can assure you that it’s supposed to have a comma,” then said to my mother, “This is why I homeschool!”

While it turned out to be a non-issue, as an additional comma wouldn’t fit on the line, I will not accept the dropping of the Oxford (or “serial”) comma simply because some English teacher says so. Dropping that comma may be acceptable in AP style, which is designed to minimize space, but dropping the serial comma is not otherwise acceptable to me. Unless the final two items are together (“peanut butter & jelly,” for instance, or even “Captain Science and Tank,” since they were in the same photograph, while Babypie was in her own), that comma belongs in that list.

But me no buts* about how this is acceptable in non-academic American written grammar, because Americans say and do many things that are an abject butchery of proper grammar and usage. American writers have become lazy, American grammarians have lost their spine, and American teachers are failing to impart a respect for proper punctuation in their students. If it’s good enough for Strunk and White, the MLA Style Manual and The Chicago Manual of Style, it’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for you, dammit.

Yes, when Lynne Truss (author of Eats, Shoots & Leaves) talks about not getting between those on opposing sides of the Oxford comma issue when drink is involved, she is, in fact, talking about me.

Considering that most public schools use MLA writing guidelines, which advocate the use of the Oxford comma, the idea of a public school English teacher telling a photographer that the comma isn’t necessary incites me to a new level of grammatically righteous anger. I’ve tolerated too many notes (both from Captain Science’s old public school and Tank’s private preschool) that pluralized with an apostrophe or misused “to” and “too” (No! You do not have “to many volunteers!”). While I often have a playful relationship with English, I will not give up my commas without a fight!

*Neither Officer Daddyman nor Patchfire have heard the phrase “but me no buts.” They both thought it was a typo. I promise that it is not. Here is a nice article about the “X me no X’s” model.