This week I wrote a devotional for our homeschool group called "Raising Tasmanian Devils". I laughed at I wrote it almost all the way through as I'm not talking about the actual animal from Tasmania, but instead I'm talking about my two youngest boys who remind me of the Tasmanian Devil from Bugs Bunny. I would be worried if I didn't have 6 older children who have somehow made it to the 13+ stage, so I actually think there might be hope for these two.
The reason I got to thinking about this was because of my 13 year old daughter who came complaining to me the other night about school. I was dismissing her at first as everyone hates school it seems at some point, but then I realized I had heard all these complaints before by the older kids and somehow they had worked through it and gotten down to work and done really well. This led me to thinking about how I should write something to encourage the other homeschool moms to press on as even though it seems like they'll never get past the "Tasmanian Devil" stage, which my younger two are currently in, or perhaps the other moms are worried that their kids will always stay in the "I hate school stage", these children we all have in our care will eventually, somehow, miraculously survive and get to the next stage of possibly even adulthood.
I will have 4 adults in the home as of a month from now and each one went through the "I hate math and science" stage or at least the "I don't know how to organize my time" stage - none of them were ever in the "Tasmanian Devil" stage - this is new for me to be raising livestock indoors, but because of these older ones, I remain hopeful that they'll make it!
The 13 year old was offered a part time job this week. She was asked to babysit each morning. Christmas is coming and she wanted to make some money, but I wanted her to do school. So I made a deal with her, if she promised to do her school in the afternoon or evening then she could do it, so she is currently on probation. Well, after day 1, she came home and got her books and did her school right away! I was impressed. It was partly because of the talk we had after she said how much she hated school. I told her it's fine to hate school and I told her to journal about it and tell God how much she hated it and why she hated it, but then I told her to also write that she is sorry for hating it and to confess that perhaps she is struggling with laziness and diligence and that she needs His help. I told her to write all this down and then to ask for His help and then to determine to be more diligent and to make a schedule, etc., etc, all in the name of turning over a new leaf in becoming more mature and responsible. In just a few days I'm already seeing this. And I've seen this now in all the older kids as well so I know she can do it.
My Tasmanian Devils are something else. When #7 was born and he was a boy, I was hoping we would have another boy just so that he would have a brother. Well, guess what - we got another boy and now I see how this was and is so amazing - they are two peas in a pod. They are each other's best friends. They go everywhere together. They have all the same interests. They speak their own secret codes and they have write their own secret notes to each other - HOWEVER - they both get into all the same trouble together and are very good at getting out of school. Each time it happens, besides the obvious frustration, there is a little part of me that loves it so much as it is so adorable in its Dennis the Menace kind of way, or Calvin and Hobbes kind of way - they are just always up to so much mischief and it makes my day quite humourous, if it weren't so maddening. BUT, my encouragement to the moms was that I know I only have a couple more years before the 11 year old comes to me and is suddenly hit by the fact he's going to be a teen and that means he's going to be an adult and that means he's going to have to get a job and maybe a car and a house and a wife and then what will he do if he only knows how to play all day......ahhhhhhh!!! That's what has happened to all my older kids as they've suddenly all been hit by reality at some point - THEY CAN'T PLAY ALL DAY FOR THE REST OF THEIR LIVES! But Calvin and Hobbes haven't realized that yet, so I'm enjoying this play all day stage as it's almost over. We get in enough school to survive. They can all read and write, add and subtract, multiply and divide, so I know they're good. They'll be hit in a very short time by reality, so in the meantime I don't need to panic like I used to. I recognize I've written this kind of thing before, but it just keeps hitting me as time is flying so fast and everyone is getting older so quickly.
A quick thing to be grateful for - yesterday we woke up with a small flood in our basement - the sump pump stopped working. But, RM was home, quickly went out - picked up another one - installed it, problem solved. If I were negatively focused I could complain about "another problem" or how expensive it was or "here we go again", but I was reminded yesterday to try to make it through the day with looking at things with gratitude - one small thing at a time - and that made all the difference. My husband was home, knew how to fix it, some money had come in to pay for it, there was little damage, flood was fixed almost immediately, not in the middle of winter.....etc. etc...so it really is all about perspective. There is no other way to look at life - a quick change in perspective and life is good.
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