Am I Smarter Than a 5th Grader?

The decision to homeschool Connor was not an easy one. For months my husband and I wavered back and forth, weighing the pro's and con's. Finally, the August before school was to start we made the decision - I was going to do this! Apparently the pro's outweighed the con's. Let me break it down: I'd get to spend more quality time with Connor, not to mention the one-on-one time I feel he needs to get ahead, perhaps Aidan will pick up a thing or two and be ahead of the class when he goes to school, and - I had 13 1/2 years of schooling under my belt, not to mention 30-some-odd years of life experience. I could do this!! Then we started. At first I was loving it! I was getting a refresher on some of the things I had forgotten, learning some new things, and sharing my love of certain subjects with my kid - what could be better? Sure, some cracks started in my perfect plan, Aidan is more of a distraction than anticipated, it's hard to have quality time with your student when he'd rather be daydreaming or doodling than reading Social Studies, small cracks, nothing insurmountable. Then the dreaded subject reared it's ugly head - Math!! Specifically, story problems. When we were pondering the subject of homeschooling, sure math came up - it was always one of my weaker subjects in school, but I, full of confidence proclaimed "It's 5th grade math, surely I'm smarter than a 5th grader!" Apparently not when it comes to story problems. As I was checking Connor's test, I noticed he didn't answer one of the questions, so I decided I'd walk him through it. Turns out I should have tried it before I asked him to sit with me. As I stared at the problem, the lines started to blur, and the next thing I knew the problem was written in Greek. All of my doubts and insecurities came pouring over me. I suddenly remembered that I had taken freshmen algebra all four years of highschool, that the year and a half I had done after highschool was at a community college, nicknamed Moron Valley, that my life experience consisted of wearing kahki pants and fitting people for shoes. I couldn't do this!! Connor, looking at me with concern, whispered "maybe we should call Daddy". I wanted to tell him to forget the problem, he'd never use story problems in real life, and walk away. Turns out, story problems teach problem solving skills. So, I sent Connor away and sat, pencil in hand for 37 minutes - and solved the damn thing. I shared my triumph with Connor, who wasn't impressed - he wanted to know if it was time for lunch yet.

So, to answer my own question, am I smarted than a 5th grader? I hope so, but I am also humbled - by a story problem...

Sometimes I wish I was Amish...

It's true - sometimes I wish I was Amish. Not for the reasons you're probably thinking - I'm not ready to give up a life of plucking, waxing, shaving, and dyeing, just so I could wear a black, shapeless dress and bonnet. At least not yet anyway. Here's the thing about the Amish - when something needs to be done, they just get up and do it. You need a barn built? Tell your neighbors and the next day, before the sun comes up, dozens of men in brightly colored pastels will show up wearing their straw hats and suspenders and build you a barn. By the time the sun sets your horses will happily be munching hay in their new abode. I like that. I want that.
In my house, there is no planning - just diving willy-nilly into something. Maybe it gets done, mostly it doesn't.
I should preface this by saying I love my husband. He's a wonderful man. Loves me, loves his kids, loves his mother, loves my mother. He works hard, doesn't party and is smarter than all get out. What he isn't, is a finisher. We have 1 bathroom in our house - it took him 2years, 6 months to remodel one 5x8 bathroom. He decided that our dining room needed some fixin. He didn't like the drop ceiling. So, he removed the drop ceiling only to discover that it was held to the drywall above it by liquid nails. Away went the drywall, and with it, the electricity in that room. I now have a cold, dark room with the studs and insulation showing. So far, no e.t.a. on completion. My front room has become a holding area for what was in the dining room, including sheets of drywall. I now have 2 unusable rooms. Not to mention the new windows that went in a year and a half ago - still waiting for the trim to go up.
I think that if I showed pictures of my house, people would assume they were the "before" pics. Sadly, they are also the "current" pics. Therefore, Sometimes I wish I was Amish - I suspect all this work would have been done years ago, you know - when it was started. Perhaps my husband needs to invest in some pastels and suspenders. Sigh...

Let the Madness Begin!!!

So, I'm sitting at the computer, playing some Bejeweled on facebook (I'm trying to beat my cousin Bridget - I think she cheats), when my favorite sister called me. She has decided it's time for me to enter the blogging world. At first there was some resistance on my part - I mean we just put the little boss of the house to bed and it was time for my other son and I to breathe a collective sigh of relief. The last thing I wanted to do was use my brain. But, said sister can be very convincing. So, from 2000 miles away my sister walked me through starting the blogging process (which I admit got off to a rough start when I couldn't find the google homepage). So, with my sister in my ear and my son Connor injecting unwelcome comments, the madness begins.

For those of you who don't know me, I am a mother of two boys, both of whom are unique and mind-boggling, wife of a equally mind-boggling husband, human to two dogs - Steve, an Australian Cattledog, and Ben, our three-legged Lab (whom my youngest, Aidan, insists is an alpacca). I homeschool my oldest son, occaisonally do office work for a friend, and count the minutes until Aidan can go to an all day school. I get a great sense of accomplishment when I manage to get more than one room in my house cleaned, get three loads of laundry a day done, manage to not trip over a dog (or a child pretending to be a dog) more than once a day.

Well, thats me in a nutshell. This blogging thing might not be so bad. Thanks to favorite sister for getting me started and I'll be back soon!