Thursday, May 21, 2009

thursday throwout

so the closer I get to 40, the more I act like 80 ... meaning that I no longer seem to care much what I say or how it might come across, so long as I am honouring in my speech and true to myself. scary.
like this afternoon ... I was at a hotel meeting for a homeschool curriculum ordering thing when suddenly I heard this woman telling another woman, both shoppers, that she doesn't really need "all this stuff" and has she ever heard of Sonlight? the one woman was shopping for her second year of homeschooling, the other woman was going to be entering her eleventh and was simply picking up some supplementary stuff, you know, to sort of round things out and feel like she was accomplishing things for once. some curriculum makes you feel that way, no matter how boring it really is or how much busywork is actually involved, but I digress. the second year mom kept writing titles down like easy grammar and the learning house while the eleven year mom seemed to get more and more confident in her speech and more and more passionate about the topic in general. at some point I, I mean *eleven year mom* apologized for possibly speaking out of turn but two year mom stopped her, touched her arm even, and thanked her for saying all that she had, telling her "you know, I needed that today". two year mom asked eleven year mom for her phone number, wondering if she could possibly come over tomorrow and look at some other options for homeschooling that weren't so, well ... you know. eleven year mom smiled big
thanked God
made her meager purchases
went over to the bridge for a lunch of pb and j
and
hugged her boys.

this is why I homeschool.

4 comments:

Luke Holzmann said...

Keep spreading the Sonlight love! ...er... I mean: I sure hope eleven year mom keeps spreading the Sonlight love [smile].

~Luke

Anonymous said...

"That's my girl ! " \O/ XXX Mom

Jeremy W. Johnston said...

There is so much to learn in life, and we can't always wait for experience to teach us. Sometimes... a lot of the time... it is necessary to learn from the experience of others. Kudos to... er... the "eleven year mom" for sharing. And, kudos to "two year mom" for listening. We need more opportunities to share and to listen, especially from people who aren't selling stuff. Thanks for sharing this sharing experience...

Jer

40winkzzz said...

hmmm... as i read this, i was anticipating that you were going to be barging into this conversation telling 11-yr-mom to just leave 2-yr-mom alone and cut her a little slack. :-)

wrong interpreation, obviously, but it all ended well. :-)

i do love the sharing that goes on with other hs moms. one of the most amazing things to me is how, as a 17-yr hs mom, i am still learning from the 5-yr hs moms! (and the 11-yr moms and whomev...)

and yeah, i know this post is like 2 or 3 weeks old now, but i am catching up on blog reading.