There Will Be A $5.00 Charge For Whining: Are We There Yet? From the Diaries of a Fruity Homeschool Momma

This week I'm sharing some Real Life Homeschooling. At least, what happened during one week of our homeschool. These posts are not meant to educate. I can't tell you how to do it "right." So I am not even going to begin to try. This is just life.

Dear Diary,

It’s Monday. I’ve been trying to pretend it’s not Monday all day, but so far all of my pretending is for naught. All the errands and activities still continue whether I try and convince myself it is a day like, for example, Thursday. Thursday is a harmless day. There is no expectation for Thursday.

My morning started with a trip to my brother’s house. I had left my phone charger there the day before. No matter that we have at least 4 cords that can charge my phone. I couldn’t find any of them. I think we must have a phone cord monster in the house. Along with a sock monster and a spoon monster.

I had to move back my usual grocery shopping routine before running Josiah to his PE class. I tried to switch grocery shopping to another day but it was impossible. Generally, the only things in the fridge about Sunday evening are homemade jellies and an odd assortment of salad dressings.

Aldi’s was crazy! We usually shop at a different Aldi across town. This one was on the way to PE. I try and make our grocery shopping trips educational, but I wasn’t having any of that today. “Get those Poptarts out of the cart” was all I could manage.

We were 10 minutes late to PE class. I managed to hit every red light in town. Thank goodness for books on CD. We listened to Diary of the Wimpy Kid twice last week. This week I have The Enchanted Castle by Edith Nesbitt in the car. I figured out that Josiah wasn’t listening too closely when he asked me if it was normal to be able to see the sides of your nose.

We have been attending this particular PE class for 4 years now. I wish I could have had a class like this when I was studying to be a teacher. Basically, Josiah is a guinea pig. Physical Education majors try out lesson plans and test their teaching chops every semester on a group of willing homeschoolers.

This week, by far, is my favorite week ever. It’s Dance. It is the most entertainment I have had in a while. I really think they should have a Dance class just for the parents. We could show these kids how it’s done. None of this “I can only shuffle my feet because I’m too cool to really have fun.”

After PE, I dropped Josiah off at home so I could run to the pharmacy. I told Josiah he could have a few minutes on the X-Box while I ran my errand. We were starting our homeschool lessons at 1:00p. On. The. Dot. In truth what I really wanted was about 30 minutes to myself. I didn’t care if it was spent standing in line at the Wal-mart pharmacy counter. It was bliss.

I realize that a good portion of the civilized world think that homeschoolers either (a) sit around and play video games all day or (b) win National Spelling Bees and grow, harvest and mill their own wheat.

Does it count that we have made our own butter?

Thank goodness School Days on Mondays are light. It took me years to figure out that I could lighten our load on busy days.

About 3:45 I sat down on the couch and contemplated taking a nap. Instead I surfed Facebook and poked a little around Pinterest. About 4:30 I realized I needed to get my act together and rushed Josiah around for Swim Team practice and our weekly trip to the Library. Not necessarily in that order.

I have found that I have had to give Josiah an assignment at the library. Otherwise he checks out unlimited Scooby Doo movies. That, Dearest Diary, is a waste of a good library trip.

It was on my way out of library that I realized that I had neglected to pack our preswim/preworkout snack. What? It was now 5:30 and my blood sugar was bottoming out.

This does not excuse the caramel Sundae I ordered. The apples, oranges and turkey I had intended to bring was much healthier. I shoved half a burger down my son and shewed him into the Y. I sat in the car and ate my sundae.

I literally brought the visors down on both sides and tried to nonchalantly eat the sundae while healthy people came in and out of the Y.

Eventually, I decided I needed to face the music and went inside. If I do say so myself I had a really good workout. Even though I frequently forget parts of the necessary wardrobe.

After my workout, I went down to the pool and watched Josiah complete his practice. Would you believe that he came out of the pool starving? Note to self: This is why I always pack food when we go to the Y. Josiah also reminded me that I had neglected to pick up bread.

One trip to the Dollar Tree later and we finally limped home. No really. I was limping by this time.

It was 8:00pm. I usually give myself some time for “office hours” in the evening. Blog posts, writing jobs, lesson planning and Pinterest surfing. Tonight, well, after taking a bath I shut off the lights and watched the latest 19 Kids and Counting Episode on Youtube.

Dear Diary. I’m Such a Slacker! If Michelle Duggar can manage 19 kids surely I can manage grocery and errand day with 1!

I will say that I am even proud I made it anywhere today without breaking down in Bertha the Buick.

Remember these faces? These were the faces of a momma and her boy who broke down during Errand Monday. And then managed to break down again the following Errand Monday. Maybe Bertha just doesn't like Mondays. She's in good company.