a day in the life of an (unschooling) family -

I recently joined pintrest (follow me here!) and there are tons of posts that make you feel like you aren’t housewife-y or stayathomemommy-y enough, already, but add that you are a un/homeschooler to the mix and BAM! You are hit with all the things that you *should* be doing. Book time. German. Latin. Dictating. Speech. World History. Debate. Economics. Craft. Physical Education. Blah. On and on and on. You should also have a perfectly designed and thoughtfully decorated schoolroom, too, shouldn’t you?

I am here to tell you that I do not do those things with my children. I do not have a school room, nor do i have a fancy curriculum. I don’t even have a schedule. This is not our season for those things, and I am finally ok with that.

A typical day would be something like this -

wake up and roam around watching netflix and eating an unofficial breakfast – raw fruits, veggies, nuts, seeds, and the occasion piece of organic string cheese or stove-popped popcorn (we are *those* crazy people that do not own or use a microwave. yes.) Sometimes there will be some lego building or coloring going on, too, but nothing too wild. This lasts till around 10am. Then I grab my phone from the charger, return about 10 or 15 messages and officially start my day.

if its a day i will be working (i currently make my own schedule as a contract real estate photographer and my kids come along – but it is temporary) we will pack a lunch and grab an activity and head out to the car and drive around photographing properties until someone needs to potty and we come back home.  Per my bosses request, I can’t work on rainy days and i have had this assignment for 2 weeks now and have only gotten about a tenth of it completed. Because of the crazy rain and because… after our early afternoon potty break it is nap time. I am not paid hourly, so there is no time limit. I just work in good clear weather during daylight hours – these two things don’t happen much at the same time where i live in January. LOL

Kids nap. I don’t.

I call around and do whatever it is that my husband has asked me to do for the day – call our tax guy (did i mention we are in the middle of an IRS audit?) and shop around for car insurance rates pay the bills and prep dinner. I love to cook, but since we make *everything* from scratch it takes a long time and by the time it is ready kids are up.

Clean up the house.

Daddy is home!

Dinner. Play. Reading. Bath. Bed. – Again, Kids. Not me.

I try to spend time with casey until finally falls asleep and I do my nightly cleaning (i cant sleep if my dishes aren’t done and my counter’s aren’t cleaned. ) and then i go off to our closet – where my noise won’t bother anyone – and watch a show on netflix and eat my dinner. Then its about 2am and I go to bed.

Oh, and if it is a Thursday or a Saturday I also work from about 4:30 to 9pm at a local nursery. My kids come too.

This is what I feel like i do all day, but really, we DO still find time to watch documentaries. Play outside. Make crafts. Watch Scripture Stories. Cuddle. Paint. Make homemade playdoh. Play in the bean bucket. Go to the Park. I forget those things sometimes until i go and flip through my phone in my closet in the middle of the night and see all the fun pictures we have taken that day. My kids learn through living life. They learn through working with me. They learn through watching shows and video games. They learn through all the documentaries they love to watch, and the books we all love to read.

let the babies be. There will be plenty of ’schooling’ later.

They learn all day every day. I don’t need a school room or a fancy curriculum. At this season in their life’s they need ME. My time. My attention. My love. My safety. To learn in my shadows and in their play.

Another season will soon come and that might require a little more.

Some days I loose my temper. I scream. We miss work. We forget to brush our teeth. I am no where near perfect.

They teach me so many things.

I do ‘test’ them unofficially from time to time to make sure they know all they need to know. They aren’t behind at all, but they have never been forced to learn anything. Learning just comes natural and so when it isn’t forced there is no reason to rebel against it. That really helps affirm for me that this is right for my family.

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