You Call That Homeschooling?

This is an article that I read awhile back and I laughed so hard I cried. I hope that you enjoy it! This is reprinted here with the permission of the author. Please visit her website. She has some very unique home school curriculum. I love her Apples Spelling for my 8Th grader who is still weak in spelling.


You Call That Homeschooling???


(c) 2006 Schoolhouse Publishing

Let me tell you the true story of a real "homeschool" day that happened in my life back when I “only” had six kids.

It all started one Monday morning in March. The start of a peaceful day was shattered with: “Mom! Mom! Stephen was ‘helping’ to load the dishwasher and broke a glass!”

Sigh. He had indeed been my “helper.” There ensued the typical, “Don’t move, guys! You’ve got bare feet! Joshi, bring me the vacuum! No, no. Mommy doesn’t need help picking up those razor-sharp shards…” etc. We cleaned up the glass without further incident, and I was able to go back to other morning chores. The next thing you know…

“Mom! Mom! The basement toilet overflowed!”

Great. I quickly finished transferring two quarts of grape juice from a large cooler to a smaller pitcher when the phone rang. We were expecting some important calls that day, so through quick mental calculation, I realized the toilet-water damage was already done, so I might as well answer the phone. I left the juice pitcher on the counter to take the call, which took about five minutes. I finally hung up and headed for the basement. As I was going down, another son came running up, eyes like saucers…

“Mom! Mom! The water in the bathroom is this deep!” (indicating the depth by holding his hands about two inches apart…) The bathroom was sunken one step lower than the rest of the basement. I couldn’t believe my eyes. He was serious! The entire time I had been on the phone, the toilet had continued to run. It just kept flowing…and flowing…filling the sunken bathroom area with water. What else could I do? I waded in, little bits of flotsam and jetsam floating about my ankles, grabbed the plunger and plunged with all my might to shouts of, “Ew! Gross! She’s walking it it!”

“Well, excu-use me! Unlike Peter, I haven’t learned to walk on water!” I piously (and a little sarcastically) returned.

After 30 seconds of frantic plunging, and two additional gallons of water on the floor, it dawned on me that if a rattled the toilet handle, it would stop running – which I did, and it did. And finally the toilet unclogged with a satisfying slurp. Now for the mess.

Thank the Lord I had just shampooed the living room carpet two days earlier, and had not yet put away the wet vac. It was conveniently sitting right by the bathroom door. Just as I grabbed the vac, one of my boys hollered down the stairs…

“Mom! Mom! Stevie just pottied all over you livin groom carpet!”

Gr-r-r-r. Oh, well. I grabbed the wet vac, started the engine, and tackled the basement flood (one flood at a time, you know…). That vac gulped water so fast, the hose was bucking all over like a fireman’s hose! The kids were enthralled. I had barely made a dent in the water when the motor shut off, indicating a full tank. We bailed it out (it was too heavy to move), emptied it, and started again. After a second and third tank, we finally sucked up all the water. I quickly scrubbed and sanitized the bathroom, then ran upstairs to tackle my livingroom carpet – again. As I was working on that mess, I was interrupted by…

“Mom! Mom! Stevie tried to pour himself a drink!”

My little apple-cheeked dumpling (said through gritted teeth) was again trying to be Mommy’s little helper. He had poured a whole quart of purple juice all down the front of the cabinets, into the drawers, all over the floor, and all over himself! My pruned and waterlogged ankles took on a lovely shade of purple as I waded over and started in on that mess. And we hadn’t even started school yet!

Finally everything was caught up. I had run the race. I had fought the good fight. I hadn’t even lost my temper – just got a little tense and annoyed. True, we lost an entire morning of school (we could make it up later in the afternoon), but we had survived. With satisfaction we sat down to lunch and made it through without mishap.

We were expecting company shortly, and they were right on schedule: my sister, her 7 kids…and no!...it couldn’t be!...her big, mentally deficient, black lab! Sigh. The kids (and dogs) had a blast, and we commenced our visit. One of my sons poured himself a big glass of purple juice, then left it sitting (as kids are apt to do) untouched on the kitchen bench as he ran off to play. Our peaceful visit was shattered with…

“Mom! Mom! Stevie knocked over my juice!” Oh, come on! My precious-poppet toddler had toddled over and knocked over that glass of juice! Unbeknownst to me, there was another unattended cup of juice on the table, but I was down on my knees cleaning up the juice mess when these words drifted to my ear…

“Mom! Mom! Stevie spilled more juice!” My little angel-faced darling had climbed on the bench and knocked another abandoned cup of juice all over the table and the mail!

Just then, (I realize this is hard to believe, but I assure you it is true), the door burst open and I heard: “Mom! Mom! The dogs are chasing cars, and so we need to keep them in the house!”

I turned jut in time to see my sisters big, mentally-deficient black lab and my own equally challenged golden retriever trot across my living room carpet. They had been slogging through our backyard swamp, up to their bellies in mud! These two proud animals stood there, swishing their great, mud-laden tails back and forth, big grins on their ugly faces, looking as if they had done something noble.

As I’m standing there, gaping in dismay, watching as mud is spattering around the room, the door bursts open and another son excitedly yells: “Mom! Mom! The chickens are laying again! We got four eggs today!” And so saying, he ran across the kitchen floor, and…he dropped an egg!

Did I fail to mention this was 2 ½ weeks before my due date with my 7th child?

As I stooped to clean up the embryonic mess, a malicious thought popped into my mind, which I quickly formed into a prayer:

“Lord, Lord! If you really love me, you’ll cause my water to break right here and now all over the floor. Then, as I’m running out the door to the hospital, I can turn to my kids and say, ‘Have this mess cleaned up by the time I get back!’ that would indeed be the ultimate revenge…er, I mean character-building lesson, wouldn’t it, Lord?”

I guess the Lord didn’t appreciate the character-building qualities of my plan, because I wasn’t granted so much as a single contraction.

Later that evening, after Dale came home and I had related the day’s events to him, he considered me with compassion in his eyes and said, “Honey, repeat after me: ‘Children ARE a blessing from the Lord. Children ARE a blessing from the Lord. Children ARE a blessing from the Lord.”

How many of you have had “school” days like that?



I want to encourage you to remember that your primary life-goal as a mother is build strong moral character in our children to ultimately bring them to Christ and glorify Him. I am increasingly aware that homeschooling is just as much about me changing and growing in Christ-likeness as it is about my kids and their studies. I am realizing that even if I have the perfect curriculum and use the perfect teaching method and have the perfect set-up in my home with the perfect schedule, all perfectly organized, my homeschool will still be a mess if I’m grouchy, impatient, joyless, irritable, nagging, sarcastic, harsh, and rude. On the other hand, I am really beginning to understand that if I allow God to work in my heart…if I yield myself to God and strive (through His grace) to grow in grace, love, joy, patience, gentleness, and kindness, my kids will learn and grow in all the ways that matter (by leaps and bounds) – even if my curriculum is cheap, my methods are imperfect, and I am an inadequate teacher.



Rejoice In Your Life’s Sacrifice

God has called us to be joyful mothers of children. Every act you do for your little ones is making a loud and clear statement about God. This is part of God’s grace in your life. Yes, it is a sacrifice, but in the sacrificing God is changing us. Sometimes it is so hard – there’s so much pressure in our lives between housework, homeschool, motherhood and being a wife. But these are all used as tools in the loving hand of God to perfect us. He is bringing circumstances to bear on us to reveal our sin and perfect us. When you are homeschooling, interruptions and distractions will come. It’s inevitable. But we have a choice, don’t we. I can choose to handle the frustrations with anger and impatience, or with grace. And, by the end of the school year, I’m going to look different than I did at the beginning of the year, depending on the heart choices I have made. By the end of the year, I will either be a stressed out, angry, bitter woman, or I will have grown in grace and patience, and kindness. As a Christian, with God's abundant grace available to me, the choice is up to me.




By Susan Kemmerer
(c) Schoolhouse Publishing
www.shpublishing.com