Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 5: When Life Gets in the Way

If you’re very astute (or subscribe to my blog and are therefore getting these post sequentially on the day that I publish them), you will realize that this conclusion to the mini-series is quite a bit late.

Almost a week in fact.

And you might have wondered if I just forgot that I promised a post #5 or if I was having a bad case of “bloggers block”.

The truth is that neither is true.

Sometimes, just like it does with blogging, life gets a little bit in the way of homeschooling as well.

My nice pretty plan for the week was rolling along perfectly… until Wednesday.

On Wednesday, we all woke up, ate breakfast, and got started with schoolwork. We weren’t finished by the time lunch rolled around, so we put everything away to finish up after the conference. Some friends of mine showed up to take the children outside and watch them for a couple of hours during Replenish. I was able to listen to a wonderful session with Betty Eisenhour about thriving through lean times, and 1 o’clock rolled around- the time for my scheduled hosting. I gave my introduction (and actually didn’t completely mess it up) and settled in to listen to Ashley’s message about infertility.

About 15 minutes before the end of the session, my oldest daughter bursts through the front door, screaming “Elijah got hurt really bad!” I pulled off my headset and rushed out the door to meet my friends carrying him up the front stairs, with his head covered in blood.

I carried him in the house and grabbed a wet towel to wash him off and see what was the matter. I discovered a huge gash on the very top on his head that I could see bone underneath. I hurriedly typed my apologies to Ashley for leaving her in the middle of the session and rushed him to the hospital, praying the whole way, all the horror stories I’ve ever heard about children dying or suffering life-long injuries because of simple bumps on the head running through my mind- and here was my son with an injury bad enough to show his skull through!

Now, I can imagine I may have you pretty worried at this point- I was too! The hospital miraculously rushed him right back and he had two nurses and a doctor in to see him before we’d been there for even 10 minutes. (It’s miraculous because our local hospital is notoriously slow about seeing patients, even with serious injuries!) They checked him from head to foot and gave me the news I’d been praying for- he’d suffered no brain injuries, broken bones, or concussions, so although he’d be really, really sore for a few days, he should be just fine.

They would staple his gash (which was almost 2 inches long on his poor little head), and they’d have to do it without anesthesia because they were afraid that giving him shots to numb it would be worse than just putting in the staples, (they did apply a topical anesthesia to numb the outer skin a little bit). He was so beyond brave (my friend who came with said that he was a grown man and would have been bawling like a baby getting staples without anesthesia, and I would have too!), so much in fact, that the doctor herself even gave Elijah a dollar for being so good!

So, what’s the point of telling you all of this on Friday, and as the last post of my Organizing Our Homeschool series? It’s very simple. Our plans are not God’s plans and we have to be able to realize this.

My plans were to finish up at the conference, feed the children a snack, and finish up our schoolwork for the day. Then, for the next day, I had planned on spending my day in much the same fashion instead of tending to a 4 year old with ‘a metal head’ (like he and his father call it). But no matter what I think is going to happen, God has plans that may not include what I’ve decided we’re going to do.

And that’s okay! We will either make up a little over the weekend or add a little extra to next week… no biggie. (This is also why I write our plans on notebook paper– so they are easily adjusted!) 

If, at any point, your organizing, planning, or execution of either come before you being a mother, you need to be a mother first. In Tennessee (where I live), you have 365 days to get 180 days of schoolwork completed- taking a day off here and there because of illness, injury, character issues, etc, are not going to stop you from getting your 180 days. Don’t cling to a plan, no matter how perfect, to educate your children at the expense of your children.

It’s two days later, and Elijah’s soreness is easing off a little bit, and that’s really good. We’re doing schoolwork again today, for only the 4th day this week. And that’s pretty good too.

Shalom!

 

 

 

 

 

Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 1

Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 2

Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 3

Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 4

Organizing Our Homeschool, Part 5