Your So Mean!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That is what I have heard all morning coming out of my youngest ds's mouth. Yes it is that time of year, the time of year that we all look forward to at the East of the Pecos Homeschool.....The new school year has begun. Well it actually has been going for a little while, we have to kind of work into it. I never start before Labor day. I think it is just wrong to start school when it is still hot. We never started before Labor day when I was a kid, and I think we managed just dandy.

I don't talk a lot about our homeschool experience simply because there are times I would just as soon not think about it. And it is such a part of life that honestly it is old news to me.  I would just as soon dwell on things like world peace and how to make good pie crust.

Now don't get me wrong. I love and adore my offspring and I have felt that we were truly called to homeschool by the Lord, but it hasn't been an easy road. Unfortunantly none of my offspring have had the desire to be scholar's.Add a mother and a father to the mix that hated school with every breath in our uneducated bodies and it has made for an interesting mix of well....just stuff.

I remember starting out with Ranchgirl. I bought this 200 dollar phonics program. We drilled and we drilled and we drilled some more because as the advertisement said.....just a few minutes a day and your 5 year old will be reading before Christmas. Well I just had to have her reading by Christmas because it would look bad if I didn't. I just about drove myself crazy not to mention RanchGirl and her daddy. She didn't read by Christmas....but she did by mid-winter. By the time the next one came along I just wanted him to read before he turned 18.

This is the one that almost made me give it up. Ranchgirl finally got smart and learned that if she got everything done..then the rest of the day was hers. DS was smart enough to know that if he pushed me to the point of hysteria that the rest of the day would be his and sometimes the whole rest of the week. This child was almost the undoing of my mental state. I would give him his assignments, simple turn my back to do something..in the same room, and I would hear..a thud. I would turn around and there he would be sprawled out of the floor seemly passed out. I would yank him to a sitting position and pick him up place him back in his chair and in 10 minutes here we would go again. His excuse was that books made him dizzy and that made him fall out of his chair. Lets see...the wind blowing made him feel woozy so he couldn't concentrate. If it was winter and the house was chilly, that made his brain slow. If it was spring and the house was warm that affected his brain as well. Sometimes his eyes didn't want to work..they felt crossed.....probably because he kept hitting his head when he fell out of his chair. And I don't want anyone to think that I just let this go on...but I am here to tell you that this child has no feeling in his hindquarters. I am pretty sure they have been numb since birth. No amount of paddling s did any good. In desperation I asked a dear friend of mine who was homeschooling all her's and already had some in high school what I should do. She told me to quit for a year. Quit! She could not be serious...that would mean that he might not make it to Harvard when he was 13! But I did it. I was to the point that men in a small bus were going to come and take me away. The next year he was 8 and we started over. It still was not a cake walk, but he just moved right on, and he didn't "pass out" anymore. Actually he did pretty well till high school. Oh my. That's all I can say about that. After a very trying day of school, he just looked at me and said, " you know mama, I am going to be a cowboy and you don't really have to be all that smart." I told him that some of the smartest men I knew were cowboys, and I bet they didn't give their mothers half as much trouble as he gave me. The whole thing was over American Lit. Lets just say the reading of the classics just didn't do it for him. I lost him on "The Grapes of Wrath." He said it was the most depressing book he had ever read and what was the point. I honestly could not answer that question....so he read every Will James book that the Library had.

DD#2 was not much trouble at all. She loved learning to read and zoomed right along. Until......high school. Apparently my children think that when they reach a certain age that  they have acquired all the wisdom that they need to get by in life. She does not want to just read about places, she wants to go there. She has her eye set on going back to Hungary to Bible college and I guess she thinks that Biology isn't all that important.She combines P.E. with animal science by starting a new colt, the above know it all brother, hauled home a few weeks ago.

Now my youngest........It is like having my oldest son all over again. Except worse times 2. And  I am much much older now and things like eyes that cross just when it is time to do math do not amuse me. It didn't amuse me all that much when I was in my early 30's...but now it is very very annoying. He loves, science, health..told me all about red blood cells and platelets this morning. He likes history, anything he can read he likes. He hates spelling, grammer and math. We started learning prepositions this morning. "Why do I have to learn these"? " Just what are these."  "What difference does this make?" " You are sooooooo mean!"

And that has been my day. I do thank the good Lord that I only have 2 left. DD is a Senior this year ...Yeah! But I have many more years left with the youngest of the bunch. I alternate between being glad, and then wondering if schooling him will make  dementia come on faster. But even if it does..I guess what you/who you don't know can't hurt you. :)

God Bless and Happy Trails
RanchWife