Monday, January 21, 2008

Mea culpa.

Yesterday afternoon I was thinking about our school, and I asked Travis whether having a schedule with assigned pages/lessons all written out might help him take some responsibility for getting his work done. Most of our subjects are just "do the next thing" sorts of programs, but I do get distracted with Katie and various things, and sometimes the "next thing" isn't as obvious to Travis as it is to me. Nearly all of our subjects require me to be fairly involved in the lessons, but some of his work can be done independently, and most of it he can do at least some of on his own. Anyway, he thought he would like to try the detailed lesson plan. Now, good homeschooling moms probably work these up weeks (months?) in advance, but I mostly just do things as we get to them and copy off pages as we need them. There are some areas where this works fine, but in others I have been noticing that I should really be doing more prep work, so I did have an ulterior motive in making my suggestion to Travis -- if he is going to get detailed lesson pages, I will have to think about those lessons at least a day in advance!
This morning after breakfast Travis complained of not feeling well. I figured it was Monday morning bellyaching and sat him down to take his math test (if I planned better, tests would fall late in the week, never on Mondays). He was poking along with it, and I was planning stuff, when he suddenly leaped up and started throwing up. The school table is at the far end of our back room, and Travis virtuously stumbled toward the bathroom (all the way through the back room and kitchen), so I had a fair lot of cleaning up time to ponder the results of my neatly laid plans for the day. I don't believe in jinxes or anything like that, but do you think Travis would have been sick this morning if I hadn't been so prepared? "Man plans, God laughs." (Don't scoff, Daddy! Remember the Miracle of the Mango.)

*Just as a footnote, I am not taking Travis's sudden illness as a sign from God. Instead, I am taking advantage of the extra time (while I am not mopping Travis's brow, that is, of course) to do More planning.

4 comments:

Elisheva Hannah Levin said...

Well, poor little tyke.
I don't think it was a sign from G-d, either, but I wonder if the math test had anything to do with it. Just kidding!

I think the most wonderful part of homeschooling is that at least you didn't have to go pick him up and drive him home with his head out of the window...

Tell Travis to get well soonest!

Melora said...

Elisheva,
The math test Might have had something to do with it. He looked pretty perky the rest of the day, but every time I suggested he might be well enough to do some work he insisted that he was still sick. It Is nice to be able to make my "only just a little bit" sick kid try to do school without being publicly exposed as a mean parent!

Dy said...

Oh, {{{hugs}}}. Poor Travis. And Poor You! All that cleaning, and planning, and cleaning! I sure hope the rest of the week goes more smoothly!
Dy

Melora said...

Dy,
It sure helps me keep from taking my well laid plans too seriously, anyway! Travis seems quite recovered, thank you.