Everyone Needs a Christina

Today when Christina walked in, she saw Ezra sitting upside down on the couch.  In his underwear.  Zach was under the coffee table. Using it for leg presses.  Where was I? Sitting between them talking about oracle bones from ancient China like it was the most normal thing in the world.

Well, that’s not exactly true.  I was sitting between them pretending that it was normal and that I didn’t feel like screaming.  I’m trying this new thing – of not controlling exactly how homeschool has to look every minute of the day – but I’m not so sure how well it’s working.

Several home school mothers have assured me that the boys will continue to learn if I let them bounce around the room occasionally, even as we’re talking.  So several times a day, while we are drilling math facts or I am reading a story or doing something else that doesn’t require them to hold a pencil or other sharp object, I let them be.  I don’t make them stop throwing the ball up in the air and catching it.  I don’t ask them to stop kicking each other as their legs swing off the couch. And I don’t ask them to quit diddling themselves in the living room.

But it’s driving me crazy.  I’m too distracted to focus.  So even if the boys might learn better this way at times, we may have drop it.  Because no one will learn anything if Mommy starts hitting the sauce at ten in the morning.

Christina, who is a former K-1 teacher, just laughed when she saw the chaos this morning.  She told the boys how lucky they were to have me as their teacher, and then she walked into my kitchen and started doing the dishes I hadn’t gotten to.

Everybody needs a Christina.