Snapshots of Life

I read this article that was going around facebook that was talking about how we see what others want us to see.  We post about our successes and the best photos of our children.

Blogs are the same way.  Even when you are trying to be transparent and talk about the successes and failures of your life, the people reading are not there seeing your life as it unfolds.  This can cause an unrealistic idea of what is going on.

I had a friend tell me the other day she is always so amazed at all of the things that I can accomplished and she feels inadequate as a homeschool mom and she can't even read my blog because of all these amazing things I do.  What she doesn't realize is that I stand amazed at all of the things she gets accomplished and I feel inadequate as a homeschool mom!

The things I post on here are just snapshots of my life.  They don't always share the whole story.  Yes I read to my children several different times a day.  I love reading and reading aloud to the children.  I mention all of the different books that we are reading but what you don't always see (although I did post a photo of her one time on Facebook) is my 4 year old choosing that reading moment to throw a tantrum and I am reading over top of her noise!  You don't see how many times I am interrupted even after years of reading aloud and the children knowing they are not supposed to interrupt.  You don't see that even the dog gets into the act and causes interruptions and it takes me forever!

You see the great science projects we do every week, but do you see history projects or our geography assignments?  No, because I never get anything planned and ready on time.  I often and printing papers off for the week Monday morning at 9:15 and do not make time to do those two things.

You see the assignments that my boys completed in their Math books, but you don't see that it took me two weeks to remember to go back and check my oldest sons work.

We see my Lily has started reading but not that she cries because she doesn't think she is reading well enough.

Even on the days we have great school days and things run fairly smoothly in that area, we have little girls that battle, loudly over toys (often ones we have two of), little boys that argue over LEGO pants even though we have 1,000's of LEGOS and older boys that end up shooting each other in the eyes with nerf guns.  They also have a tendency to spend way to much time on their electronic devices even though they have time limits which is another blog post in itself!

My house is never 100% clean, and to be completely honest today it is way worse than usual!  The boys forgot to do the dishes last night and I was too tired to care.  I did not fold laundry this week-end and there are two baskets in my bedroom waiting to be folded plus I didn't wash or dry anything yesterday and have two over flowing hampers.  The family room was picked up but did not get to shop vac.  The play room is trashed because all of the things from the boys room got put down there so we could paint and they stick it in the middle of the floor.  I don't know how we will be able to do school today!  And we have archery and two soccer games if it doesn't rain so the chances of getting it all taken care of is pretty slim.

We still haven't talked about the gallon of milk that got dropped on the floor or the day Emmie decided she was going to get all the paints out or the morning the dog went and rolled in the pig manure next door.  Not to mention my own constant second guessing of myself every day or the difficulties I am dealing with with my oldest daughter right now.

The point I am trying to make is don't base whether or not you are a successful homeschool mom on what you see on blogs or hear other people talking about.  Everyone's lives are different and we can't get a true picture of what goes on in other people's lives because we are not living them.  Our lives are not going to be picture perfect, but they are not supposed to be.  God chose you to be the parents of your children and His plan is perfect.  That makes you more than adequate.  We (and I mean myself too) need to put more focus on our lives rather than comparing ourselves to others.  God will be faithful to give us what we need to complete the task He has put before us.

Now I must go because it is 9:05 and the dishes still aren't done and I have not printed assignments off for the week yet.

Happy Homeschooling!