A Great Start - at least for day 1!

 I think that had to be the best first day of school....at least it seemed great to me!  When I was describing it to my husband later, I realized, I'm really only homeschooling 2 kids right now, the 8 and 10 year old.  The other kids operate very independently and I'm just this lady they talk to once in awhile when they have a problem.  I kept thinking to myself, "Why is this going so well?"  Oh!  It's because they aren't 3!  They can walk!  They can talk!  They know how to feed themselves!  They can read!  It's a marvel to me that I made it through those younger years.  They are BY FAR the hardest.  I just didn't know it.  Guess what I will be doing whenever I see a younger homeschooling mom.....I'm going to tell them how GREAT  they are and how AMAZING  it is that they are doing what they're doing and that they'll MAKE IT!!!  If I can, they can.

The other amazing thing that happened in just the last two weeks was I transformed my house into a "campus".  I have a primary/elementary wing, a junior high wing, a high school wing, a boarding school wing, a college/university wing and a music school.  Genius.  All without any money spent on school renovations.  I do this every year.  I stand in the middle of a room and I put my hands on my chin (my kids always get worried whenever I do this) and I pray and I pray.  I ask God to show me what to do, to help me figure things out, to help me figure out my "stuff" so that everything will have a place, so that I'll be happier, the kids will be happier, things will go smoother, etc.  After the pandemic hit I started making those crazy vine trees and had the beaver dam of vines in my house for literally months.  I thought I was going to sell them and I still might, but for a long time, even after the beaver dam was gone, I had these crazy trees all in a corner of a room looking like a little forest of vines.  It didn't look bad, but I knew I needed the space back for school.  What to do?

I also knew I needed books back in our family room area.  I had moved them all to my room upstairs because I didn't like the chaos the shelves had become, but the problem was, if you move the books, no one reads.  But have you ever tried to move shelves with books on them?  It makes my kids SO MAD AT ME!!!!  "MOM!  WHY ARE YOU DOING THIS AGAIN!!!!???"  Oh well, I make them move them anyway.  haha.  I also stood in my AWFUL mudroom area and put my hands on my chin and prayed and prayed there, too.  "Lord!  What do I do with all this clutter?"  I really needed a place for a school office/administration area and I didn't want it in the kitchen, the family room, or my bedroom.....what to do yet again?  Suddenly it came to me....get rid of the crates, or at least some of them.  So that's what I did.  I had my two of my sons move all their clothes up to their room, stuffing them under beds and taking crates for their clothes upstairs.  Now I had a place for a desk, which is just a long white board resting on crates, in the back of the mudroom.  I brought down all my teacher books, curriculum, resources, printers, etc....and I had a secret study for all my stuff, away from everything.  Then, it occurred to me, and this is the amazing part, my 14 year old could also use this as his private study center (i.e., my new highschool wing).  He LOVED the idea.  Yesterday when he used it for the first time I kept thinking, "Why is there no arguing, no fighting?"  Ohhhhhhh......my two firecracker boys aren't seeing each other!  The 10 year old and the 14 year are explosive almost every time they are in the same room.  All of last year, I was separating them.  Yesterday, one child was with me, one was in the high school wing and all was at rest.

The books made themselves downstairs as well and now all the kids are reading more.  My vine trees decided to not leave but instead I ended up using almost all of them in my decorating which, to me, looks AMAZING!  I love how they look!  Might be a bit of vine tree overkill, but I love it.  My 12 year old works in the junior high wing/library and she loved it, too.  It's cozy, Christmas twinkly lights everywhere, books all around her, her own table....lovely and near me so if she has a question I just am a quick walk away.  That was the only thing I did notice yesterday, I was walking all over the "campus" answering questions!  Oh well, getting my steps in, I guess.

We had debated ALL YEAR about sending my gr. 12 daughter to school.  She's my "cat" child.  Loves sleep and loves to, uh, sleep.  How would I get her up each day?  But God just kept showing me, over and over and over, no, keep her home.  But I didn't want to!  I wanted to send her!  I was willing to work in the mines to send her!  But, it didn't feel right.  So what then?  I researched all the curriculum she needed to make her feel like she was accomplishing all the right courses and we spent more than we normally have in years, but still waaaaay cheaper than private school.  This made her very happy.  She had curriculum she could feel and see and turn pages (no online courses).  She loved that.  She could look at each book and know how much to do each day.  To my utter shock, she woke up right away yesterday (only day 1, but off to a good start!) and like a little 6 year old, came down so many times telling me, "I just got smarter!"  So I think we made the right choice.  She seems to enjoy what we picked and went at it.  She's the boarding school child.  I send her "away" to the school upstairs where she has room and board.  The only difference is she keeps coming downstairs to tell me how smart she is.

My college wing has an indoor/outdoor location.  My son's college classes are all online.  He can study above the music room in his loft or if need be he can move to my husband's office in the shop, outside.  He's set up for both spaces if it is too loud or if he needs more space to work.  My university son will study in his room, but he did that all summer for the MCAT so he's quite happily set up there.  I can NOT believe all 8 will be home this Fall, including my husband.  It's absolutely nuts and full of people everywhere, but oddly because of the set up of the house, seems so spaceious and no one is running into anyone anymore.  It's almost as if the school doubled its capacity with just a few changes.

I also can't believe how much we all need a schedule.  I rewrite them every year.  I make them for every child, for every subject.  I print them out and display them.  It motivates each one to stay on track.  There are no questions as to what to do.  Chores were done in and outside and the house looked great when we started yesterday morning.  When the house is orderly it makes such  difference in how school goes.  Clean house, happy kids, happier mom.  So, a good start to the year.  Maybe day 2 will be rougher, but at least the first day went well.