Finding balance...

Ever had days like this??

I'm not going to play the "My day is tougher than your day..."game, but homeschooling moms (or dads...) have it especially rough.... I often feel like I am spinning, spinning, spinning....just to keep up with everything.

The basics: food, clothing and several diaper changes.  I got waylayed with the usual laundry load yesterday and Monday by Owen, who decided that it was much to difficult to get out of bed and walk the two feet to his little potty, and that his bed is a much better place to go.  Two separate loads are required to get all of the pillows, blankets, sheets and mattress cover cleaned.  Total washing and drying time: 5 hours.  Forget washing anything else... except the emergency pairs of underwear to keep the rest of us semi-presentable.

The housework:  ummmm....well.... does dumping out the old coffee, swishing the pot once or twice and refilling it count??  Jordan and I did manage to get the kitchen swept yesterday morning, while making breakfast.  We both forgot that scrambled eggs were cooking.  Nothing worse than smelling 'burnt egg smell' all day.  Especially when you can't stand eggs to begin with. (me)

The schoolwork: You can only request a child to "Go read a book" so often...  We actually had a stellar day on Monday - I'll address that in a separate post.  Yesterday we got waylayed by the silly workbooks we have to do for karate - and you can't test until they are all turned in - and testing is this Saturday.  Total time to finish just the workbooks for both Rylan and Jordan: about an hour and a half - on top of everything else we need to do.

The personal time:  I got to read two 'pages' on my Kindle yesterday.  I did so while stirring the Spanish Rice I was making for dinner.  I'm reading Bossypants, and I laughed out loud at how Tina Fey doesn't use the word 'blonde' when she is reading fairytales to her young daughter.  Instead, she substitutes yellow-haired', so that the connotation that blonde hair is somehow better than brown hair is avoided.  The little girl is not fooled - she prefers the blonde over the brown.  With respect to Rylan, this very subject came up the other day when we were playing with her Disney princess dolls.  She loves her Belle doll best, and I shared that I like her best, too.  I make a concerted effort to make a kind remark about Rylan's brown hair from time to time... I have brown hair too, and I remember growing up - a child of the 70's, in the shadow of long, beautiful blonde hair as being the mark of true beauty.  I don't ever want Rylan to feel like she is anything 'less'.  Not sure what the little girl ideals are these days.... Monster High?  Brats?  Somehow I don't think awkwardly huge heads and feet are appealing, much less humanly possible. 

Networking with others:  I know that D is grateful for their home after a long Christmas vacation, that A just bought some fabulous running shoes and has set a goal to run 500 miles this year (I am so envious!), and that S is juggling sick kids with sick pets.  And I got the gist of that from their blog updates during the other five minutes of free time that I had yesterday.  Having any face time with friends is downright impossible.

Time with my husband: yesterday we had to take a detour to get him to his drop-off point for his commuter van.  We spent the time bickering about which route was faster and searching on the smart phone for the reason why there was a detour.  I got home and found out on the local newspaper's website that there was a horrible fatal accident.  We spent the time during the ride home trying to figure out how the accident could have happened, now that the route was open again.  Then Dean went to do a Board of Review for an Eagle Scout who is squeaking in a Palm Leaf before his 18th birthday on Thursday.  On Monday night, we got all the kids in bed by 9:00, and enjoyed watching The Colbert Report and a new episode of Portlandia on the DVR.  That was nice... I needed some down time, and we are about 20 episodes behind with respect to The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.  Portlandia is absolutely hilarious - I strongly recommend watching the first season (6 episodes) from last year, just so you get a 'feel' for the show.

It's hard to fall into bed and night and ever think "I got so much done today!".  If you focus on one of the plates, all the others get into a rather precarious position.  Why, why, why is balance such an elusive thing?  I know we all struggle with it, on a daily, if not hourly, basis.

I am working on a new school schedule for us, trying to find that balance.  We are trying out the new schedules this week... and it's sorta working.  Lots of tweaking is in store, but I think I have found a way to combine household chores/schoolwork/play into a flow that works for us.