The Ostrich Hen Pulls Her Head Out of the Sand

You will notice that, to date, I've written no end-of-summer, let's-start-thinking-about-the-school-year post.

I'm still not ready to write one. But last night I had to face facts: at 6:45 a.m. this morning, there would be a schoolbus pulling into my driveway to pick up my firstborn (whose needs have been better served in the public school) and take him away to begin his high school career.

And my homeschooled 8th, 5th and 2nd graders would be looking at me and asking, "So when are we starting school?"

And my answer? "I'm not sure yet...."

We don't really have to start till next week, since none of the other families in our newly-formed homeschool co-op are starting till next Monday. We've all ordered Sonlight's American History/Literature packages--the Core 3/4 Condensed for our 2nd through 6th graders, and the Core 100 for the two 8th graders in the group.

I'm going to teach writing once a week to a group of nine kids, ranging from 7 to 14, making up my own assignments springboarding off the Sonlight literature whenever possible. (What a challenge, eh?) One of the other moms is planning a science workshop for the seven 7-to-12-year-olds weekly or biweekly, and she's also offered to do preschool with three 3-to-5-year-olds during my writing class. The other two moms will help with carpooling and watching babies.

We're all in the same theater group, so we've scheduled our classes just before theater class on Mondays and play practice on Fridays; that way we don't have something every day of the week, plus we can help each other carpool to and from the theater sessions. We're also going to try a kid swap, where my friend's six kids will bring all their books over to do their lessons at my house for one day this week, and next week she'll take my kids. (It worked so well last year with my other friend, but she'll have only one at home this year, so it made more sense for her to swap with the other mom in our co-op, who has a daughter the same age, and for me and the other mom with six to try it out.)

Our heads were spinning after the meeting in which we planned all this out, but we think it's going to be great. We're all looking forward to less driving, less guilt about not doing enough science, writing or preschool, more camaraderie for the kids, and a day off every two weeks!

So I really should spend this week writing lesson plans, making schedules, decluttering, reorganizing--oh!--and helping my kids with their auditions, which are Friday--yikes! (Our next show will be a musical version of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe--fun, no doubt, but oh, all those inhuman faces...at least 70 of them...and so few of us doing makeup...)

But what I really want to do this last week of summer...is milk every last hour out of our swimming passes.

Except the pool is now open only on the weekends.

Because whether I admit it or not--

School has started.

***

(At least we still have one more camping trip scheduled, over Labor Day, to the beach of Lake Michigan.

Our camping trip last weekend was most enjoyable. A highlight was a beautiful Sunday morning for our outdoor church service, with Papa Rooster officiating. A friend of our teenage set was there, who was unfamiliar with liturgy. Her comment afterward was, "Our church isn't so communal. [Not even sure exactly what she meant by that, but I found it an interesting word choice.] During our service, people think about what they're going to do afterward, but during your service, you really have to think about what's going on."

Since "liturgy" literally means "work of the people" and its essence is participation, I thought she really captured something!

We're praying for good weather over Labor Day, for swimming and hopefully another beautiful outdoor service, this time with the friends we camped with over July 4th.)