Secret Life of (un)Schooling

Homeschool has been on my mind a lot lately.  I vacillate between going crazy with my children underfoot, being thankful we can live frugally enough to keep me at home, wishing Mississippi would stop being the bane of my existence and allow unvaccinated children to attend daycare and school and being so flipping excited at the prospect of watching my children flourish under our guidance and love.

Yes.

It's a lot of work keeping up with all those conflicting thoughts and emotions.

But no matter if our unschool plans work out or not, you can't stop the teacher in me from coming out all.day.long.  Henry is very well-versed in the natural science world of our backyard and astounds me with his comprehension of books we read.  

He refuses to say his ABC's and has little interest in identifying numbers and letters but the kid can break down the life cycle of a moth, knows exactly what plants needs to thrive, explains that baby animals that come out of eggs don't drink mama's milk but babies that are born drink mama's milk and has a firm grasp on categorizing animals into herbivore or carnivore status.  

Tonight's post-bath activity involved him wearing my cowboy boots and his cowboy hat and using my robe's belt as his lasso to drag the rocking horse into a "safe, dark place so she can have her babies".  He proceeded to rearrange the furniture so she could rest behind a chair in a dark corner and I watched as he lifted up to her tail and the announce "there is another baby!".  We could only leave for our walk once I proclaimed his job was done -- the mama was healthy and comfortable and the babies were drinking their milk.

So yeah, we are doing our little unschool thing which involves us doing whatever we want to do and knowing that our kids' lives are enriched by it all.  Our biggest little's 4th birthday is just around the corner so we are firmly planted in "preschool" mode but I can't fathom our attitude changing about homeschooling our children anytime soon. 

Of course, I can't fathom Mississippi law to change anytime soon.  Or moving our of state anytime soon.  So here we sit.

Sitting like a mama bird on her little clay eggs.

Just doing our thing.