Anything but ordinary

The house is fairly straight and it was a quiet day. The girls went to visit Pam and Bill for the day and later in the afternoon Mady attended art class. I had to vacuum out my beast of a vehicle since I could scarcely view any carpet through the pretzels, art work, change and overdue library books-we picked all that up before we vacuumed! It was late when we arrived home but we planned to make up some of my famous cheesy chicken enchiladas. Dom picked up all the ingredients on his way home. Chicken, creamy chicken soup, corn tortillas, tomatoes...I boil water for the chicken, get out the glass casserole and begin gathering all the ingredients only to discover someone forgot to get the cheese for the cheesy chicken enchiladas! OK, I didn't mention to Dom to get cheese but I have been making this dish since we met and he begs me to make it every winter a dozen times. The man knows what is in them! We had a good laugh and then decided to make breakfast instead. After wards I put the boys to bed and once I came back out to join everyone the girls surprised me with a clean living room! I love surprises! All days are not always clean and serene and this may seem like a regular day to anyone, it was anything but ordinary.

Our family has just begun traveling down this path of "unschooling." I like to think, for me, this was an easy switch from what is now typical family life in most American homes. I never enjoyed school, I don't like rules, I am always looking for something new to explore. Once Luke and Ezra came along and funds were no longer available for private school for all 4 kiddos, it was a great excuse to homeschool. The whole sit down @ the table and do "book work" lost its appeal before we even began. When I read about unschooling @ first I was shocked. Unschool-no school, no workbooks, no grades, no tests? The first thing that came to my mind was, "How do kids learn?" Duh! Like so many others I finally realized our kids have been learning on their own since birth with us there holding their hands when they took their first steps, or providing a rich verbal home to aid our kids in learning speech. As I read more, I thought trusting my children to learn what they feel they need to know when it is pertinent in their lives sounds like the way I would have liked to have been treated as a kid. My parents were great in many ways, there is no denying that. I would have enjoyed being treated more like an equal person sometimes instead of always just a kid. I love the part about just letting go. Mady's, Niki's, Luke's, & Ezra's lives are their very own to do with as they choose.
I am working on being a more mindful parent. I hope I can provide a rich environment for my kids to grow and create themselves as the people they dream of being. Sometimes I do think that they learn in spite of all the richness I try to create! What I mean is, some of the activities we experience sometimes seem to me...well, pointless. I take them places sometimes, and while they are excited to go, once we get their they play. It seems to me they don't really pay attention to tour guides or informational people. Mady and Niki rarely have questions about what we are doing and when I ask them what their favorite part of the trip was it is usually just playing with friends. I think kids will learn no matter where they are or what you give them to play with. There are so many examples of autodidacts in America's history. Like I said, kids will learn in spite of all we try to "teach" them.

So now after ending the evening with the kids and I doing more chemistry experiments, it is time I committed myself to autodidacticism. Is that correct usage of the word? I don't know, off to find out. Man this life is great, anything but ordinary!