An Odd Day in the Life of a Homeschooling Mom

Or maybe this post should be titled "A Day in the Odd Life of a Homeschooling Mom?"

Or even "A Day in the Life of an Odd Homeschooling Mom?"

Yesterday morning, I finalized Bonnie's lesson plans for the day. (Because I never do that the night before, even though it's more sensible and intelligent to do it ahead of time.) She and I completed her math and grammar lessons before I headed to town to run errands. Thankfully I have a wonderful aunt who watches the boys for a couple hours on Tuesday mornings so that I don't have to drag them to stores, the bank, post office, etc. Some Tuesdays I finish all my errands and read a book in the parking lot before it's time to get the boys. Yesterday was not one of those days. While I was in town, Bonnie worked on her math and grammar assignments and independent reading.

The boys and I came home for lunch with Bonnie. I glanced at her completed work to make sure she's on track, then the boys and I headed to my part time office job. Bonnie occasionally comes along and brings her work, but yesterday she wanted to work independently and be allowed to watch Harry Potter after everything was done, which she normally cannot do until the boys are in bed because Fred is still terrified of the television.

About ten minutes after we got to the office, Fred busted his chin on the concrete floor and we headed to the urgent care center, where he received five stitches. I am the opposite of a mom who takes her kids to the doctor for every little scratch and sniffle. In fact, I think it had been over a year since Fred had been for anything. On the drive to the center, I started talking myself out of going (Fred wasn't even crying anymore and hardly bleeding) and I felt a little silly. The nurse practitioner took one look and said "He definitely needs stitches," so I'm glad I stuck with my original gut feeling on taking him in.

After our urgent care visit, I stopped at the drug store for Neosporin (not something I keep in the house but strongly suggested by the nurse) and to allow Fred to pick out whatever ridiculous treat he wanted. Poor little guy had been mummy wrapped and was completely hysterical while they stitched him up.

Then the boys and I went back to the office and I worked for a couple of hours before coming home. (While I'm there, the boys play outside or play with toys and draw inside.) Without the urgent care trip, I would have only been at the office and away from Bonnie for a few hours, but it ended up being all afternoon. I came home around five to fix supper and had to make a really difficult decision between having wine or having coffee. I chose wine.

Bonnie did a great job of completing her work and chores while we were gone. And she benefited from us being out longer than expected because she had time to watch more of her movie. I felt like I hadn't seen her enough though, and the time we had together we were both a little snappy. Actually, it reminded me of weeknights when she was in public school, and I always felt like I missed the "good" part of her day and had her for the cranky, needy time. I seriously don't know what I'm going to do with that girl when she is a teenager. At any rate, I think that from now on, she will either come with me in the morning for errands or to the office in the afternoon on Tuesdays.

With our trip to the urgent care center, yesterday was definitely not a "typical" homeschooling day for our family. But I'm pretty sure that typical doesn't exist for us.