Saving Money, My Foot!

I like saving money. So I try to save money by doing things myself instead of paying someone else to do it. Specifically hair cuts. Plus, my mom was a hair dresser so I can usually employ her expertise when I need to. 

Until the other day.

Background.... several weeks ago, Alex had decided to give himself a haircut and being the confident and capable young man that he is, he went right to town. The scissors and proper identification of trademark-Alex-hair-color hairs found behind the recliner one afternoon, were a significant indication as to the disaster success that happened just above his forehead.

He had a very original hair style complete with the messy-gelled-look to cover up any possible unevenness. That worked for a few weeks but then he was getting too shaggy overall (sans the section just above his forehead) so I decided to pull out my clippers and go to work.

So there in my kitchen I evenly mowed off his hair until he was a nice looking boy again.

This may seem normal and harmless and not worth blogging about but there's more to the story.

As is the nature of hair that is cut, it falls to the floor. But of course, you already know this -- everybody knows this. To expect anything different would be strange, I know. But the fact that the hair fell to the floor is what makes this post so worth writing about because if it hadn't fallen to the floor, I would not be writing this random post about a hair cut: I'd be writing about my success at defying gravity.

And of course, once the hair cut was over, I swept the floor thoroughly but I was barefoot while cutting his hair and while sweeping the floor so obviously, I walked on a strand or two of hair. But that's okay: it was a free haircut so it's all worth it, right?

Plus, to expect anything different than walking on hair that fell to the floor while you gave your son a free hair cut would be strange, I know. But it all plays into this there's-a-hole-in-the-bucket-dear-'Liza-concept story here folks.

Fast forward to the next day when we left on a weekend trip and spent the day at the zoo walking and walking and standing and walking some more.

That night, after getting to the hotel and kicking off my shoes, I noticed that I kept getting this annoying sliver feeling in my foot. It was so annoying I finally sat down and went on a sliver hunt right then and there in the hotel room.

Bear in mind, I have no sliver hunting tools with me (pin, tweezers, magnifying glass, shovel, knife, chain saw, search light, pitch fork, etc.) and I was almost a little leery finding anything because even if I did find it, I wouldn't be able to dispose of it properly. So if there was a sliver, he'd just sit there and grin at me and make fun of me and say mean words like, "Na-Na-Na-boo-boo, you can't get me!" and I'd have to listen to that all weekend. Which would be highly annoying.

So there I am on this hotel bed with a husband on one side trying to watch TV (television) and 27 small rabid children bouncing on the other side of the bed trying to watch TM (their mom). Like, if mom is interested in something then we are too and heaven forbid we should miss out on anything even as much as a sliver.

Oops... Did I say rabid children? Because I meant to say rapid.... You know, like moving around quickly fastish-like. But they may as well have been 27 rabid children based on the stress inducing situation they were causing. Right there on the bed. While I sat in an advanced yoga pose with the bottom of my foot touching my chin and my knees in an unmentionable position in order to support my torso and keep my hips from dislocating.

Between bounces and earth shattering movements, my eye caught something on my foot. And then I saw it: a hair. A stupid, nasty and probably even rabid, hair. Not like a rabbit hare but like a human hair. Just sitting there, not rapid at all. So yeah. It was probably rabid, come to think of it.

It was a short, Alex-hair-cut-size hair. And it was on my foot in a very stuck way. As if it was coming from inside my foot, it was that stuck.

So I looked closer, moving the sole of my foot up to the tip of my nose where I stared intently at it with crossed eyes (and please don't forget the 27 rabid rapid children that were still on the bed bouncing and staring too) while I expertly advanced my yoga skills even further.

I used my super sonic surgical suction system index finger tip and thumb tip and extracted efficiently with an enormous enigmatic explosion yanked out a very poky Alex hair from the sole of my non-tender, super rough and calloused foot.

And there it was, all 3/8ths-of-an-inch of hair out of my foot. In the palm of my hand. While I did yoga in a bouncing hotel bed. With 27 rabid rapid children surrounding me. On vacation.

As if I couldn't think of anything better to do than an Olympic level yoga performance, right there in a hotel bed with 27 rabid rapid children, all because I seriously needed to begin an immediate rapid hair loss program on the bottom of my foot (this link directly explains that the bottom of the foot is supposed to be hairless) due to the fact I walked bare foot on hair I had cut from my son's head in order to save money.

Ouch.

I'm thinking that next time, I'll save my sanity foot; not money.

A Home School Mom's Creed

Today was supposed to be our first day of school for 2012. But a certain child was up a lot last night with a fever of 104 and the rest of the kids are loafing around with head aches and body aches. So we'll start tomorrow, as long as everyone is healthy.

I was geared up to start school but with a little trepidation as I thought over the last year of school and particularly our first day of school last year. While looking through my blog drafts, I found I documented that day but never posted it to my blog. I decided to share it today.

The following blog post was originally written on the first day of school for the year 2011 on September 6. Landon was 7, Janae was 6, Alex was 4 and Korynne was 9 months.

I was all set: it was our first day of school for the year.

The kids were excited. I was excited. And I was confident.

I wasn't worried; even though I've never home schooled two 1st graders, entertained a preschooler and nursed a baby all at the same time, I didn't worry about a thing. This was technically our third year of school since we did kindergarten two years in a row. I was used to the routine of school: I knew what I was doing.

Ha.

I was naive. And insane. Completely insane.

I really wasn't prepared for what came next: Home School Burnout Syndrome.

Yep. On the first day of school for the year.

Home School Burnout Syndrome was something that I thought happened when tried to cram too many subjects into one kid at once. Or when you pushed your kid too fast. Or held them back, resulting in a complete disinterest for learning. Or when you got mad and yelled at your kid because they wouldn't grasp a concept. Or when you couldn't figure out how to motivate yourself or your kids with school. Or when school just wasn't fun. Or after a twelve hour day of sitting at the dining room table slowly inching along through a single page of math.

I honestly expected HSBS to hit at least months into the school year, if it was going to hit at all. Like I was thinking maybe years down the road when my over academic 15-year-old decides to take on college level calculus. Or something really extracurricular that is totally out of my league.

Okay. So basically, I thought HSBS was something that happened in a unique set of circumstances. And since I had been home schooled for my entire education and my husband had been home schooled for the last half of his education and since I had been going to home school seminars since my own children were too young to start school and since I had been prepared ahead of time for becoming overwhelmed by curriculum and scheduling and lesson planning and slow learners and ADHD and, and, and... I was NOT prepared for our first day of school.

I thought I was years away from HSBS. Yes. Before today, I was THAT naive.

So, then there's me. The day after Labor Day, jumping belly first into the pool of home schooling. And what a belly flop it was.

It started out with... well.... it didn't start out good.

Somebody kept biting the tip out of their pencil. Yes, out of their pencil.

Somebody else chased a cricket through our schoolroom which absolutely traumatized the Pencil Biting Pupil since crickets are pretty much the epitome of all evilness.

That same Somebody dropped their handful of school stuff in the dirty floor drain off to the side of our schoolroom.

Somebody else argued with the teacher on the math DVD. Yes, the teacher in the TV screen.

A little Somebody got bumped in her johnny-jump-up and didn't appreciate it.

Another Somebody got bumped in the process of the little Somebody getting bumped. They didn't appreciate it either.

Somebody couldn't remember how to count to 20.

Somebody else forgot how to write their numbers correctly.

Somebody tried using fifty million thousand crayons on one little "egg" in their "E is for Egg" page in their phonics.

Somebody broke their pencil. Again. (Lead deficiency anyone?)

Somebody wrinkled their math page up because they didn't want to do it.

Somebody kept trying to slip off to watch a movie.

The little Somebody needed to eat. Really bad.

Somebody totally forgot their numbers places and couldn't say what number "67" was. "Oh I know! Seventy!" was the answer.

Somebody hit their younger sibling.

And I was ready to throw in the towel and say, "Forget it! Grow up and be stupid: I really don't care if you never learn anything."

But I couldn't say that yet; NOT on the first day of school. The first day of FIRST grade! What a way to start out the year and the first of the next twelve years of school.

This whole situation made me sit down and ask myself, "Why in the world are you home schooling your kids, of all the crazy things to do with your life? I mean really, why not take up Driving Off Cliffs or some other completely fatal hobby?" In the moment of frustration and anxiety, I frankly had no answer.

I think I'm just crazy, and that's why I home school, was the only Home School Mother's Creed I could assign to myself.

Or is it because everything in life that's worth having, is something you have to fight for? Is it because things you spend your life, blood, sweat and tears on, are always worth it in the end? Is it because that just because it may be hard now, doesn't make it a bad thing. How many good things in life come on a silver platter with no effort?



Honestly, I didn't have a quick and easy answer to this question. Is it worth it? Is it really worth it? How many people do I know that were raised in public school and turned out to be amazing individuals who are impacting the world? I know a lot. How many home schooled adults do I know that aren't doing anything valuable with their lives? I know a lot of those too.

The answer isn't home schooling or not home schooling. It's simpler than that. The answer is: what is my purpose in life? Is it to have this big agenda called "home schooling" and I surround myself and my kids with people who think about education the same way we do? NO! My purpose in life is to teach my kids to be loving, wise and hardworking people who love to learn. 

The bottom line is: the kind of person I am, I would not be capable of teaching those qualities to my kids if they were going to school away from me everyday. I would slough off in my responsibilities. I would be complacent.

Quite honestly, another person could probably teach my kids their academics far better than I can. I know there are educated people who understand the concepts in my kids curriculum far better than I do. And they'd be able to explain it better too. But are they going to instill the qualities I want my kids to take into their adult life that they would need to learn now? No, probably not.

And not because they don't want to instill those qualities or don't have those qualities themselves. It's because as a school teacher working in a school building teaching dozens of children, they're not my child's parents. They don't live with my child. They don't deal with teaching them gratitude and respectfulness and responsibility and joyfulness and other necessary character qualities on a day in and day out basis. They teach them academics in education because that's their job. That's all they're contracted to do.

And if they were to individually meet the learning needs apart from academics of every child in their classroom, they would never get their school work done for the day. It's that simple because there's not enough time in the day to get all that done with dozens of kids in your classroom. Even the most zealous teacher who wanted to instill extracurricular character training in her students, would be limited by time and resources and uncooperative parents, not to mention the kids who acted like mine random naughty students.

My kids are basically normal kids but in a lot of ways, they need to learn so many things apart from academics. And if they never learn these qualities, they will be nightmare people as adults. They'll be the kind of adults that nobody will want to hire or be around or befriend.

I've met several sweet children who are not home schooled and I highly admired the quality of attitude and perspective these kids have. And then when I watch all the work their parents put into them (even though they send them to school every morning), I know I would not have that self motivation. If I sent my kids off to school everyday, I would be a slacker parent because I would just expect the teacher to fill in the gaps of my parenting.

But by dealing with a Pencil Biting Pupil and a Cricket Chasing Child and a I Will Destroy My Math Page student on a day-to-day basis, I work my butt off to get them to realize that being a bully or a baby or an obnoxious person, is really not in their best interest.

Plus, with as much chaos that ensued from just one of my kids on this particular today (not to mention all 3 kids), the local school principal in our school district would thank me for not sending this child to his school. Really, he would. And all the parents of the other students would be relieved to know their kids are not being influenced by mine. Seriously.

And maybe someday, we'll be at a place in our lives where another form of school besides "home school" will be necessary and acceptable for our family. Until then though, I will home educate my children in all aspects of learning... including the character qualities that teach people not to bite pencil tips off, not to harass other students with crickets and that wrinkling their math pages up in a fury of anger doesn't help anything.

And that is my creed as a home school mom.