Can I have a do-over?

A fly kept me up almost all night and it is still pestering me now. I started to use the word “terrorizing”– that is how oversued that word, and that whole ism of terrorism, is. I know, I know, I need to learn to write more better without the dangling participles but for now, just dip the extra bread in the runny yolk that is my writing style and slurp it up.

Morning comes whether or not mothers have slept, and boys who have slept have no sympathy for mothers who have not. My boys are high-spirited to boot; right now, one is taking pictures and the other is sailing on a pirate ship he built. This is before breakfast.

What kept me up last night is the issue of Homeshooling/Unschooling. It has been eating at me since the real estate agent told us, over a month ago now, that I would be doing our boys a disservice by homeschooling them here as the schools are so good. It was a hard pill to swallow, because I really liked the man up until then, and I should have just spit it out at his feet and told him how bitter it was and how I would never swallow something so nasty but I was trying to be The Good Mommy, The DotingWife, and The Easygoing Buyer Who Just Wanted To Find A House WIth A Biggish Yard.

What made the whole deal worse is that I had this sort of crush on the man, although it was a platonic crush. He was an older, successful family man with a family business and I think it was just a huge craving-a-father-figure thing. So I didn’t say what I wanted to say to him, I just sucked it up and let it eat away at my spirit (and I ate away at it, too, with bread and candy) until now. I am regurgitating everyting today. I want a do-over.

Here is what I wish I had said to Jim Pollock, and what I am saying to him now: 

“No, Jim, we don’t want to put in an offer on the tiny little cookie-cutter house that is right across the street from the elementary school because then it would be too easy to send our bright child into the sheeple factory which could completely crush his spirit.”

(We actually did put in an offer on said house and they rejected it so we walked away, taking it as a sign that it wasn’t the house or neighborhood for us. I have since had severe “Buyers Remorse” for the neighborhood we didn’t buy into, because after all it was called Park View and was right across the street from an extensive, paved walking trail.)

“A disservice?! Did I hear that right? I beg your pardon! You mean to tell me that you think that those ‘cottages’that they have had to put up over there in what used to be a field due to overcrowded classrooms would be a better learning environment for my gifted and talented son than a loving, (mostly, unless I am PMS’ing) nurturing home where he gets 1:1 attention most of the day (although he will tell you his brother gets more because his little brother is still nursing) and that a ‘certified educator’ who doesn’t know my son and his interests (photography, nature, science, anatomy and physiology) or his preferred modes of learning (he can count to 100 while jumping on a trampoline) would do a better job of seeing to it that he learns what he wants and needs to know in life? I think you’re off-track there, Jim, but I will forgive your illogical comment.”

I thought I wanted a big-time do-over last night at about 2:23 a.m. when I still hadn’t slept and had tried to do so in three different places. I thought, maybe “They” are right and maybe I ought to send Liam to public preschool now that he is 4 and they will come and get him on a bus and we are down to one vehicle (“Minivan Lite”) to save money because gas is so high and it is so expensive to live here andI am not working outside the home and besides I really need to focus on myself and getting my “Arthritis” and my weight under control so that I can be more active and grow our business and write more.

No. Stop it! (Coffee makes the brain work better). This is not an all or nothing deal. I can do all the above things much more easily *while* homeschooling, especially when my boys are young and we are homeprescooling and unschooling most days. Yesterday, they helped me pack up an order, a six-pack of lotions, for one of our best customers. They “read” the pictures on the lotion bottles and COUNTED them to help me assemble 2 Key Limes, 1 Grapefruit, 1 Jasmine, 1 Lavender, and 1 Rosemary. How many 4 and 2 y.o.’s can recognize herbs? How many 2 y.o.’s are learning how to run an at-home business? They helped me inventory all of the lotions I have on hand for a BOGO Free Sale while we were at it. And that was just one of about fifty things we did together yesterday. We are  truly living The Continuum Concept and living proof that children are little info sponges.

I will not drive nor will I allow my little lamb to be bussed into the woods. He is just way too smart for public school; and I don’t care if it is the best school district in the country, it is the public school system and its learning process in general that we have a problem with. When we can afford a private Montessori or Waldorf school, we’ll look into it.

So there.  Do-over done.