home, for keeps

This was one of those mornings when you struggle out of bed and think "ok ... so what now, Lord?"

My oldest was the alarm I actually listened to this morning ... "Mom, I woke up with a bloody nose ... I got it in the night!" Not that a bloody nose is a call to 911, but he has experienced so many since having his tonsils and adenoids removed two years ago. He usually swallows some of the blood, too, which makes for one sick feeling child that gets the chills and feels a little like passing out. I am not good with blood.

They both needed showers due to an excess of pink and purple hair glue the hairdresser thought would be a fun treat. At least it washed out. So, here it is ... 10:19 am and, no, school has not started for the day. It got me to thinking. What does a typical school day look like around the Campbell Academy of the Arts, anyway?

Funny enough ... a lot like this.

I usually have to email my husband a couple of times before I feel like I can start. He grounds me. When he is at work, I miss him terribly. Gag if you must. After 13 years of marriage, I am still spellbound by this one man, and I cannot get enough. (ok ... I will admit that there are some things he does I have had enough of, but I usually push those thoughts aside).
I wonder what it would be like if my husband was working from home, and how he would possibly put up with all the times I know I would interrupt him. Then I head to the spare room, where most of our more school-y things are kept. The boys hope, desperately, that there IS a wonderfully distracting something I have discovered so they can keep on eating and reading whatever it is that has distracted them!

I have noticed a pattern. We all get so wonderfully distracted in this home. Sometimes it's good ... sometimes it's Price is Right. (can that count as math .... somehow?) My boys love to read (they get that from their Mother's side) and they read very well, thank you. Many are the times that I am trying to teach a supposedly "new" concept when one or the other will fill me in on the details I either left out, or seemed to be quite ignorant of. They are never rude ... just really well-read people wanting to let me in on the secret information they have collaborated in their "spare" time. The capacity of the human brain amazes me.

Some days they will inform me that they think I am taxing their brains a little too much. Suprizingly, I have noticed a pattern here, also. It always occurs simultaneously with the phrase "ok .... let's get out our Math". This is the perfect opportunity for Mom to share her little-known secret that she learned in her days in University Psychology; the human brain, at the end of it's days, atypically has only used up 10% of its capacity.

Shazaaam!

What I do know is this:

I love my boys
I crave the challenge
l am at home
there is no where else I'd rather be.