If You Aren’t Burned out in February, You’re Doing Something Wrong

The title of this post will be my mantra come this time next year. It is what a fellow homeschool parent said in response to my post in a forum saying, essentially, “how do I keep doing this?!” I like it.

It was just an awful week in terms of school. Three different Valentine’s day get-togethers with different friends. More than 50 valentines to color. (I didn’t make him color them all. It just was too much.) And a cranky kid who just wanted to play and whine about every little thing I asked him to do from collecting the laundry to clearing the table, not even to get started on SCHOOL. And the bottom line is we got NO school work done at home all week.

Raisin is very advanced for five years old, so I don’t know why I was so stressed about getting nothing done this week. He can read. He usually likes to do math. And he did learn something this week: he can tell you all about the ear (which is what he learned about in his enrichment co-op science class yesterday). He DID put his face in the water at homeschool P.E. on Tuesday. So there definitely is progress over last week, I suppose.

But I have nothing to show in terms of mother-directed schooling this week. Nothing that I can see. I know it all is okay in the long run, but I still just feel it was a wasted week. This is the week I felt for the first time that I really WANT to just send him out the door to public school and take a deep breath in the peace and quiet of my home (ha! with my baby that won’t happen, but maybe it will be a little quieter!).

What do you do in February to recharge your motivation for homeschooling?

I’m hoping I can back up, take a deep breath, and enjoy being together in the coming week, especially as we celebrate Strawberry Shortcake’s first birthday!