SQT: Lessons Learned

I'm linking up with Kelly and playing with the big kids this week....but I'm also chickening out and linking up late so no one will click on my link.

We're done with formal homeschool lessons for the year at our house, but that doesn't mean the learning has stopped - especially for me.  Here is a sampling of what I've learned this week:

~1~

When my 4 year old opts to throw a tantrum during daily Mass and balks at the conditions that must be met before returning to the pew, there is likely to be a lot of screaming and wailing and gnashing of teeth....and not just from me.  People shut the doors to the entryway and glared at me.  The elderly couple sitting in the cry room that I was unable to use because they were sitting in it glared at me.  Eventually, I retreated with the whirling dervish to the basement.  After the Agnus Dei she became bored and realized she wasn't going to win that battle and chose to return on my terms.

~2~

The nice lady from our parish that agreed to let me bring the girls with me to help serve a funeral dinner on Friday has likely never seen my four-year-old at Mass lately.  Thankfully, Meredith thought setting lots of tables and making lemonade was a lot of fun.  The promise of cheesecake might also have motivated her to be on her best behavior.

~3~

If you put eggs in a small pan to boil and then go sit outside and forget that you are boiling eggs, they will eventually explode once the water has boiled off.  Fortunately Jon smelled the burning eggshells and turned off the stove before I burned the house down.  I heard the popping noise and was trying to work through why it sounded like someone was making popcorn.  Sadly, this is not the first time I've attempted to burn down the house with my "cooking" skills.

~4~

I need to do spring cleaning in the dead of winter.  Once it's nice out I have no desire to stay inside.  Sunny warm weather is for planting flowers, pulling weeds, and playing at the park.  We've had plenty of cooler, rainy days here during the last week.  Unfortunately, I run on solar power and my body feels strongly that cloudy rainy days are for reading books and snuggling on the couch.  I only have two rooms cleaned so far.  I tried to tackle a third one on Thursday, but somehow we ended up at the neighborhood park instead.

~5~

Somehow over the course of the last seven years of marriage, I have completely lost track of what foods I like.  I make the menu every week, write out the grocery list, and purchase all the food except the items I forget when I set my list down in the grocery store and can't find it and send my husband for the forgotten items one at a time as I need them.  I can tell you what meals are my husband's favorites (mostly Mexican dishes and anything grilled or containing a high meat to everything else ratio).  I can tell you what Jocelyn likes (everything except coconut, and especially spaghetti).  I can tell you what Meredith likes (everything, especially meals that make enough to allow her to have seconds).  I have no idea what I like.  Jon asked me what meal he could prepare for Mother's Day.  It took me a full 24 hours to come up with even one idea......and I'm still not sure it's a favorite.

~6~

My top preferences for homeschooling approaches are classical and unschooling, according to this quiz I took the other day.  The classical approach won by a landslide and that was no surprise to me.  I was lost in the sea of homeschool approaches and curricula until I read Susan Wise-Bauer's The Well-Trained Mind.  Everything fell into place so easily after that.  The fact that unschooling was my (distant) second preference was a shocker.  I thought I was really against that.  I like schedules and routine and ummm...control.  Maybe I don't know as much about what unschooling is as I thought I did.

~7~

This whole idea of "quick takes" is really hard for me. I'm not good at being short-winded.  If I'm going to tell a story, I'm going to tell you every detail and start at the very earliest point at which the story begins....or even before the story begins.  To those of you who know me in real life and have found yourselves trapped on a couch or on the phone with me forced to listen to every. excruciating. detail, I apologize.  I know I do it.  I know it's wrong.  And yet, I can't stop myself.  Maybe forcing myself to write shorter and shorter quick takes each week will be helpful to all of us.