Disclaimer for "Our Schedule"

This is in response to comments on my post titled Our Schedule.

The last two months have been the most consistent, most well-flowing, most satisfying time I've had homeschooling so far. We've really hit our stride. That said, the first part of the disclaimer is that we have really built up to this point over the last few years. When they were preschool age I knew we would be homeschooling so we started having organized activities a few days a week. Kindergarten age we did a few more formal lessons like math and me reading aloud about whatever subjects the kids were interested in, like dinosaurs or the solar system. Austin is now in 2nd grade and Nyah is now 1st grade, though I say that just because of their ages-- almost all of their lessons are done together. They are at different levels in math and learning to read, but everything else is the same lessons. However, they remember and learn different things for the same lessons, which is totally interesting to me. But I have been gradually developing our schedules over a number of years, and it will continue to change and grow as they do, and as the younger ones become a part of school.

The second part of the disclaimer is that we don't do everything every day. I wish we did, but we soooo don't. We do most of our schedule most of the time, but there are plenty of disruptions and cancelled lessons. We have days when we need to run errands in the mornings before the little girls take naps in the afternoon so all of our lessons don't happen. Plus we have lots and lots of interrupted lessons. I can't tell you the number of times I stopped a lesson to change a diaper, pick someone up who's bumped her head, put someone else in timeout, snuggle someone, give Olivia or Jolie some needed one-on-one time, and so on. There are days when interruptions feel constant and I reach a point of "we're done for today--go play." The other day we were able to spend 45 minutes talking about beavers, but it meant putting off another part of our science lesson, and having to catch up a little after lunch, and we'll have to catch up a little on Friday, but the kids were so interested that I let it run its course, which is one beautiful thing about homeschooling.

The third part of my disclaimer is that I am horrible at weekends, vacations, or when people are visiting. Not that I think we have to do school on these days, but I wish I kept up with the basic outline of chores, scriptures, and devotional.

So I hope no one has the idea we are a perfect homeschooling family, perfectly doing all our lessons all the time in our perfectly clean house in perfectly pressed clothes. I never iron anyways.