Must Be Doin' Something Right~

My daughter turned 12 this weekend. She has been "going on 22" since she was about 4, so I thought I'd be prepared, LOL. She is a really awesome kid who has more confidence then most grown women I know, and tons of personality. Skye has been homeschooled her entire life, and has been allowed to follow her interests and talents. She is also very involved in our church, which is Unitarian Universalist, and has had her mind greatly influenced by both the belief system and the congregation. At 11, she was a conversationalist genious, debating religious freedom, personal rights, equality and peace to all who care to engage her. Her opinions and intelligence are often very much her own and are usually linked to a personal experience within her own diverse life. Her free thinking confidence mixed with a creative mind makes for an extremely interesting pre-teen;)
And pre-teen she is;) She is extremely involved in fashion and design and spends hours and hours drawing, painting, and reading Vogue. She LOVES the eighties-music, clothes, fads-and takes me to stores that sell clothes that remind me of my junior year of highschool;) She recently discovered the telephone and IMing and I am enjoying the ability to use it as a reward for good behavior;) She has a Myspace page, which I monitor closely, and an email account as well. I check both regularly and we have had some interesting conversations about Internet use and safety-my daughter and I can discuss ANYTHING, btw. She added a few "friends" to her page by request, without knowing them at all-they were friends of friends of friends....I checked the links through, trying to figure out who one 14 year old girl was on Skye's page, and didn't like what I saw. This young girl was offering pictures of herself to anyone who would email her-and they were illegal pictures. I quickly deleted her link and questioned my child. She had no idea about the link, and also had no clue about who the girl was. She agreed to allow no more "strangers"...The line of what a "stranger" is these days is shakey though, isn't it? I check on her page consistantly. She is only allowed online once or twice a week for a short period of time, so there is not much there.
I was checking up on the page the other day, reading the responses to random questions as I chatted with David on the phone. Favorite food, favorite movies, favorite color...Simple stuff...Then, as I was about to click "close" on the page and get on with my conversation I saw the heading "Heros" and stopped to read-fully expecting her answer to be John Lennon or something like that-instead I found my eyes full of tears as I read the words "MY MOM". Her follow up sentence remarked on the gravity of our last year and how I handled it so bravely for her and her brothers...I was left in tears and totally speechless (and that never happens;)). What an amazing young lady she is....:)

This is How We Do it~

I worked tonight. I am a server at a local restaurant and I really love it;) It's a fun place, the guests are mostly families with kids, and my co-workers are a great bunch of people. I laugh A LOT when I am at work. After being a SAHM for 11 years, having a place to go where I am just "Sami" and not "someones mom" is actually quite nice;) I love being there and talking about my kids. People are always shocked to find that I am forty, for starters, and that I even have kids. Then thay are shocked to find that I have FOUR...Then I drop in that I homeschool them-jaws drop-and, oh, yeah, "I am a single mom"...;) (my tips are pretty good;) LOL!) I find it rather interesting; People have such pre-conceived notions of women with several children, or homeschoolers, and of single moms...And I guess I am not fitting into any of those stereotypes;) I have always honored my need to be different and out of the box, and this works quite well for me;)
Everyone wants to know HOW I do it, and the answer is not a hard one to give-One, I just DO-it's like a Nike commercial;), and Two, I have great people in my life who believe that I am super woman and support me 100%. I don't have people "raising" my kids. I have seen many single parent situations where that has happened. My kids spend less then 10 hours a week with a sitter, at which time they are with my brother's family. I survive on divorce settlement savings, part time earnings budgetted well, and, of course, child support. I have no retirement plan, I have no long range personal plan, I simply live each day to raise my kids the way I intended, and that is my priority. I strongly believe that my decision is a good one, and one that I will continue to find Blessing in, in the future. This is my way of providing my kids with the BEST private education they can get, tailored to their own needs. I strongly believe this is the best way to raise my children to be the free thinking individuals they are meant to be. One does not have to live within a box, but be free to explore the ideas and boundries that exist in the "whole" world. My kids are welcome to embrace that ideal and have opinion and expression. It's not always easy for me to take, but it's their truth they need to find, not mine. For this, I dedicate myself to our homeschool life.
We don't live fancy, we budget our money and our time. My daughter (12) is a fashion freak inspired by the eighties, and she LOVES to shop at thrift stores and clearance sales;) She earns and spends her own money. My sons get stuff from cousins, friends with older kids. They love the "worn" look, so I rarely have to buy them clothes. I LOVE Target:) We don't NEED air conditioning to survive, or even much heat-got that from my dad (who never had a heating bill more then 45 dollars!). We don't do movies, but wait for Redbox DVDs, eat out at my work at a discount, and use coupons. I don't pay full price for ANYTHING! I only work enough to make our budget and get some into savings each month, and I have no credit cards. I also have no car payment and keep up maintenance on a 99 van. My kids don't purchase video games, though we have one that was given to us. They don't "get" the need for labels on their clothes. My daughter DOES have an iPod, which her dad and I got her for Christmas. They are level headed kids who don't ask for much at all;)
I teach my kids during the week, working a few nights a week while they stay with family. They go with "dad" for two weekends and other times during the month and I work then as well. On weekends, we are sometimes involved in soccer, and we are very involved in our UU church.
People think this is crazy and that I must be losing it. We are ok. I am great, actually. Granted, having some savings in the bank provides a great relief for me, but it's not that much. I never "had" a life of "things", so I don't feel deprived of anything-I did GREATLY in my marriage though. I sleep in sometimes, and stay up late, after the kids go to bed, writing, talking to friends on the phone, reading...I have friends everywhere that back me up, make me laugh, and love my kids. I take off two weekends a month, while the kids are away, and do something for myself, visit friends, travel, go out to eat. I think I have a pretty ok life;)
It's been a year-We are doing fine;)

"The Wind!! The Wind!!"

Today we starting building a weather station for our weather unit. Our first experiment was to make a weather vane out of straws, rubber bands, a pencil, a nail, and a piece of card stock. The boys put it together and took it out into the backyard as I looked on, camera in hand, doubting the experiment as the cards blew off and the winter wind whipped around the kids. The weather today is cloudy, very windy, and getting colder by the minute...

They set the weather vane up on the picnic table and waited for the wind as I tested the compass with my own directional knowledge. Soon the wind whipped through, the vane shook, spun a few times, and pointed to the direction of northwest....! The boys were excited to check in with the Weather Channel for the actual forecast proof....AND, it WORKED!!! The winds today are north/northwesterly at 11 miles an hour! We added the data to our weather charts along with the temperature and rainfall and diagrammed our findings in our science notebooks. Julian said it was "fun stuff school":)

Perhaps we should inform the Weather Channel that all they really need to study the weather are straws and rubber bands...:)

Angels do Phonics Too;)

This is my sweetie:) Julian, or "Jules", as he allows only me to call him, is my youngest. He is at that still sweet and cuddly age of five-six next month. He melts my heart easily with his brown eyes and pouting lower lip-I know it just drives my other three kids NUTS! He likes to do schoolwork, and makes me laugh at his observations and letter sound imitations:) His absolute favorite thing to do is play cars, and he has about 2000 Matchbox cars that end up in pockets, in the van, at every one's house...Everywhere we go, there are long lost cars waiting for him:) He can make incredible noises for each vehicle and his fire engine sounds can challenge the real ones that come from the fire station behind our house! He is old enough to make sense of things and make his own peanut butter sandwich, but still small enough to be adorable and loving and full of "lovies". When all else fails, when the other three are wild or smarty pants or just fighting it out, Jules is always available for a big hug and many kisses...

Order Returns

A strangely quiet morning here at the house. Almost frighteningly so;)
Everyone was away for the weekend, and I was on my own, doing what I do when I am merely "single Sami" instead of "MOM!". All the kids came home Sunday evening exhausted and somewhat ill-just colds. They all slept later then we planned, but got things done and got into their schoolwork without my guidance. Yes, REALLY!
After a year of being "off" of what was a lifelong daily routine for my children, we are now attempting to "get back to normal", whatever "normal" is, for a single parented homeschooling family of 5. We are settled enough in our new home-after five moves in the last year. The kids LOVE LOVE LOVE the neighborhood, which is full of kids and bikes and skateboards...:) My front yard is always full of kids, little boys on bicycles with raven's jackets on, pre-teen girls perched on the backyard picnic tables...My kids are happier then I have ever seen them. My homeschooled daughter is trying hard to put together her list for her birthday party-she has to keep it to 20 kids. Thankfully I don't have to pay for the "non swimmers" as her list also includes adults, older teens, and preschoolers:) I love this concept of Homeschoolers being unsocialized....LOL
So, back to the structure of things...I came down like a giant hammer on our lives last week. Schedules, chore lists, bedtimes, expectations, all came to light. There was serious resistance, of course, but by Wednesday things were looking better...And apparently, by the calmness of this morning, the reality of "Sami's Domain" has sunk into their heads...Public school is out for MLK day, so there is an incentive right outside the schoolroom window:) It's seventy degrees here, BTW....
It feels so good to be back blogging...It's been a long while...:) Things are SOOO much better...
Sami