by Mary James

Recently while playing a board game with my four oldest children, my son said something funny and I laughed. My nine-year-old daughter immediately clapped one hand over her mouth, pointed at me with her other hand, and shrieked to my son, "You made her laugh!" Something seemed odd about that statement, but instead of dwelling on it I tucked it away and continued with the game. The very next night, while playing another board game, my son once again said something that caused me to laugh. And once again my daughter went into hysterics and said, bouncing in her seat, "She did it again! She laughed!" This time I sat up and took notice. Had it been so long since my children heard me laugh?? Had I become such a sourpuss that a chuckle from me would bring on such a reaction??

I thought back over the past school year. It had certainly not been one of our best! Last summer we found out we would have to move just as I was in the throes of morning sickness. The move was (as most moves are) a nightmare which caused our school year to be delayed until the end of October. I wanted to stay on course right up until Christmas because I knew we would need to take several weeks off in February when our new baby arrived. But (stop me if you've lived this story!) one thing and another seemed to always be in the way of our school time. After Christmas I was absolutely determined to make the most of the last five weeks before the baby's arrival... but then a flu bug hit our household and took its time working its way through the entire family....

So, yes, I was having a stressful year! We had not accomplished as much as I had intended by this point in time. But I am no rookie at this homeschooling thing, so I was able to calmly remind myself that it would all be fine in the long run. I work a lot with new homeschoolers and one of my "sermons" is about sticking it out when real life doesn't seem to be following your carefully prepared lesson plans. Everything gets back on track eventually and the life lessons your children learn in the meantime are as valuable as anything they can learn from a book.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.... but I forgot one simple little thing. I forgot why I'm doing this! Homeschooling is not just about what I want my children to learn from their textbooks... or unit studies... or even from just sitting around reading great books. I know my children are getting a good education – even in a year when our time in the classroom has been "catch as catch can." My teenage son has been reading some excellent books on his own and I can see a marked improvement in his writing skills as a result. He also finally seems to be having some kind of breakthrough in math (the end of "Middle School Brain Fog," I guess). I bought my fourth grader some books on bugs – her current passion – and she has been busily inhaling everything there is to know on the subject and delighting us at the dinner table with evidence of her vast knowledge. My quiet little first grader just reads and reads and reads and writes loving notes to everyone in the family — and I can't help but notice what an excellent speller she has become! And my dear little kindergartener who has struggled with letter recognition and sounds for quite some time shows amazing improvement every time we go back to school. And her little face just beams and beams every time she correctly identifies a letter.