Short post today, my friends.
Allergies have claimed the little energy I had left today (I refuse to claim a cold after my month long battle through December.) and the Tylenol Sinus has decided that my mental capacity should be reduced to that of a slightly advanced moose.
And so I will be brief.
The dreaded Christmas tree has finally been packed away, as the rest of the Christmas decorations have resigned to their 11 month hibernating status in the cave of the garage. It was really necessity that drove them out of the house, as I began winter piano lessons and it would have been quite embarrassing to have students gathered around a Christmas tree in the middle of January. The kids and mom took down the majority of the decor last night, as I lay in a stupor after a three service Sunday, but I had the honor of completing the transition today by packing the tree in its cardboard coffin. Also, yesterday my mother in law came by with dinner to help out my wife, who is just now coming back to herself after her own bout with the flu bug. It was a kind gesture for her to drive an hour and a half just to spend a few hours, and somewhat made up for the fact that the kids hadn’t gotten a chance to spend Christmas with the grandparents.
Unfortunately for our family learning, Naomi is the flu bug’s next victim, and she spent the day in a similar half awake state. Marcus did move ahead with his public speaking work, and I forced him to complete Friday’s language arts, which he claimed he couldn’t finish because he was ‘busy’. His ‘busy’ is code for ‘playing games and watching TV’, so that went nowhere with me. I used the time at home to order much needed curriculum – Saxon Math for Naomi and Math-u-See Zeta for Marcus. Math U See is my preferred method but Naomi has showed zero interest in the last few months, and it has become obvious that she’s not progressing, so it’s back to the drawing board with her. Marcus, on the other hand, is chomping at the bit to go through his self directed video tutorials. Once again, the differences in the kids learning styles is evident. Naomi has a independent streak, but is very hesitant to approach open ended tasks without clear guidance. Marcus would have me believe he is capable of completing a Masters with no help from me. So the challenge is to meet both of my children (as well as my oldest in public school) where they are educationally, and not only in light of my teaching preference.
Financially I wish we could play the waiting game and find other ways to supplement our curriculum, but I am loathe to skimp on the materials I know are the best for the kids. So we bite the bullet and skip past eBay when what we really want is not available there. We had the sobering experience of telling Marcus he couldn’t do football league this semester and finances did play a role. Can’t blame the economy on this one, only our lack of foresight in budgeting for all the experiences we wanted the kids to have this year. So we’ll have to do better in filling in the gaps until we can shift our budget to match our true priorities – our family’s educational and spiritual growth, which weigh much heavier than just the gimmes and wanna haves of life. Another place where practice has yet to match with principle.
Did I say I would be brief? The moose had a lot to say apparently. Proverbs does say that the wise are few in words, so perhaps I need to spend a little more time in meditation tomorrow, so that my verbosity will be curbed by a fresh wind of wisdom. We all can hope.
Looking unto the Hills,
HsD
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