Ramping up and focusing on what's mine.

Now that May has rolled around again, I am already turning my thoughts toward the next school year.  

To be honest, I've kind of given up on this one.  

After the baby was born at Christmastime, and then H.'s twins in February, and then some drastic changes in plans for our friends in the other family we co-school with --

it became pretty clear that we were not going to finish out the year as planned.

This happens a lot in home schools, when babies are born.

So instead we have turned to a sort of schooling that I think of as "rehearsal for next year."    The big changes have already come.  Now we can try to get used to them, and work around them.

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Those pictures up above are my new schoolroom layout.  I think I've finally found the best desk arrangement for the space.  I don't know why it took me so long to come up with it, other than I have been stuck inside the "rectangle" box.  

• The extra space it creates in the corner by the windows gives me enough room to put a bassinet (or later, a playpen type thing, maybe).  
• Students sitting in three of the desks can see the dry-erase board, and all four of them can see the windows, which I sometimes use as a dry-erase surface.  
• The easy chair can be turned to face the desks, so a nursing mom can sit while teaching.
• My seven- and ten-year-olds can be seated out of arms' reach of one another.

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H. and I have been getting together to teach for a little while, once or twice a week, only for half days.  I re-started teaching geometry first, a double lesson once a week; then H. began working on English literature again.   That's kind of our limit for now; Latin is on hiatus.  We'll return to a simplified, but complete, schedule in the fall for our oldests' ninth grade year.

Yesterday was the first time H. came to my house since the twins were born.  I cleaned up an old bassinet for the occasion, the one I kept in my office when I had my first baby while I was in grad school.  H. brought a portable one and added that to another portable one that I had set up in the living room.

(Action shot:  nursing singleton in the foreground, diaper changing twins in the background.)

H. arrived around eleven; we had a cup of coffee together; I taught geometry for 45 minutes; lunch (turkey sandwiches) was served by our daughters; then I worked on next year's curricula while H. taught language arts, and then we had tea.  

The weather turned poor, so H. stayed to share in our pizza dinner while waiting out the storm.  A good day.  I think we're going to be able to make it work pretty well, and believe me, ramping back up slowly is a big part of that.

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My house is beautifully clean, as clean as it gets, because the housecleaner just left.  I've decided that Every Three Weeks is the right frequency to get a deep cleaning, and the best way for it to happen is to hire someone else to do it.

 We all still have to work the night before to clear the floors and counters, make room in the laundry and so forth, so that we really get our money's worth.  But do the math:  it takes the housecleaner about four hours to vacuum, dust, scrub, and mop the house from top to bottom.

Meanwhile, I teach a half day of school.  

I resisted hiring outside help for a long time.    I finally started hiring cleaners after my now-four-year-old became a toddler.   It took me a while to get used to having some other person come into my home and clean my stuff, but now I'm sold on it.  The woman who comes in to clean now is the second regular housecleaner we have hired; the first was a young man who was wonderfully cheap -- that's what finally convinced me to give outside help a try -- but in the end could not keep his business afloat.  I pay more now, but since she really does a better job, I don't mind.

I know plenty of homeschoolers prefer to save their money and put their kids to work instead.  I think this is largely a matter of choice. Yes, it's important to teach kids to care for a home, and so technically we could spend a half day or a full day on cleaning projects every month and it would still have educational value.  Yes, it's money that could be spent on other things.  I get that. 

But specialization is not a bad thing.  We have the money, and I think it does good work when I spend it this way; it stays in our local economy, after all, and helps support another family.  She's faster than I would be, and definitely more thorough; while she was here, I was supervising math and oil painting.   And (unlike when the kids help me clean) I didn't feel the need to yell at anyone, so the money bought me a measure of emotional peace as well.  

I've definitely figured out that next year, my duties have to be streamlined if I want to do them well.  

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H. is making some similar changes, at least temporarily while the twins are small.  She laughs about how everything comes on a truck now:  clean cloth diapers arrive (and dirty ones leave); groceries come in a truck; clothes for the children, school supplies, everything.  Errand-running had to be trimmed back to the absolute minimum, hence, no shopping in physical stores anymore.  

Focus will be the watchword for next year.  Both of us need to focus our energies.  She, because she finds herself in such a rare and intense kind of parenting; me, because I'm always tempted to sprawl them all out onto everything except one-on-one connection with my children, and I sense that with the birth of my fifth child I have tipped past the point of being able to pretend I have a handle on everything and everyone.

I can outsource the housecleaning.  I can outsource some of the teaching.  I can't outsource being wife and mother.  I have always known this, but it's finally sinking in.

Comments

[Jenny]

"My seven- and ten-year-olds can be seated out of arms' reach of one another."

I love that you said this. :) Do they fight or just can't leave each other alone?

If we had enough money to hire a housecleaner, I would definitely hire someone to clean the bathrooms. I loathe cleaning bathrooms. The rest of it I think would be fine to do myself assuming I had the time. (As it is now, I don't have the time or the money so I just have a mess.)

"I can't outsource being wife and mother." Ain't that the truth.