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I Feel Guilty that I’ve Been MIA

My Battle Between My Career and Homeschooling

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I feel really guilty for being MIA — or missing in action — here on the blog. It feels like it’s been weeks since I’ve posted. Who knows? Maybe it has actually been that long.

Still, even though I haven’t been posting as much as I’d like to, I try my best to squeeze writing in when I can. That’s the life of a homeschool mom, I suppose.

It’s true that I have responsibilities, and like most good parents, I always put my children first. However, that also means I put my dreams on the back-burner — often.

Truthfully, I’ve been dropping the ball here while juggling my career and ensuring that my children get the quality education that they deserve. However, in time, I’m confident I’ll find a good flow again.

The New Year

If you couldn’t already tell, this week was our first day back “in school” after a two month summer break — and it’s been seriously rough.

It really didn’t matter how much I’d planned before summer started, or even how organized I was with all of my lesson plans. It was still tough. The fact of the matter is — there is an unpredictable variable involved: my child.

Missing Public School

Let me tell you, my kid was not happy to start school again. Actually, he even told me he wanted to go back to public school instead.

I had to break it to him that after the fiasco we experienced last year, that was never going to happen — at least not until he’s a little older and we move to another district.

Heck, at that point private school may even still on the table too. However, right now homeschooling is what is best for our family and it’s exactly what we need.

Temper Tantrums Galore

As you can imagine, having a 2nd grader who isn’t exactly excited about schoolwork is challenging.

It’s even more challenging when you have a little perfectionist on your hands.

He’s at that age when if he doesn’t get something right the first time, then he doesn’t want to try at all. He just wants to give up, and boy does he let me know that. We’re talking full-on temper tantrums — crying, sometimes screaming, the works.

In times like these, I try to remind him to use his emotional skills to calm down. I also try to remind him that failing is the best way to learn. After all, if you already knew the answer to begin with, did you even learn anything at all?

Getting in the Groove

Towards the end of the week, I noticed my son began to mellow out a little bit in his routine.

There were less tantrums all around and he didn’t seemed so stressed about every little thing.

He even started completing his assignments on time, which actually allowed him to have more time for fun and games. It also allowed me to have more time to myself so that I could get some work done and write!

Finding Time For Me & My Career

It’s not easy trying to be Super Mom. In fact, as I hinted before, I really felt like I was failing all this week.

But at least I was failing forward. Through trial and error I’ve finally gotten to a place where I can take care of myself at the same time as meeting the needs of my son.

My schedule is actually working. I don’t need to stay up until 2:30AM just to get my writing in any longer either. (Yikes.)

I basically felt like a walking zombie after getting only 3 to 4 hours of sleep a night, and I was miserable.

But now, I can start the day early, get my physical fitness in, knockout our homeschool work, and have the rest of the day for work and family time.

It just takes time to adjust — for everyone in the family to find their own flow and work together as a team.

This Year’s Curriculum Resources

Just in case you’re wondering — and since I get asked this question a lot — here are the curriculum resources that we’ve started out with at the beginning of this year:

Time4Learning

Time4Learning is our core curriculum. This is our go-to for Language Arts, Math, Science, and Social Studies. Their unique all-online platform allows me to plan out the entire year in advance and I can easily make changes as needed. I can also assign lessons by day which makes it easy for my son to know exactly what assignments need to be completed and when. Detailed records are also a plus!

Building Spelling Skills — Grade 2 (Published by Evan Moor)

Even though T4L is our core curriculum, I found that it was lacking in spelling education. By a stroke of luck, I had run into another parent in an online homeschool group, and they suggested that I look into the Evan Moor workbooks — so I did. As it turned out, these “workbooks” weren’t really workbooks. Instead, they were teacher’s edition reproducible blackline master books. They were just like the resources my teachers used to make copies on a a copy machine over twenty years ago. They are also exactly what I was looking for. Lessons are broken up into weekly plans, with daily practice assignments, and a spelling test at the end of the week. Word lists are included.

How to Teach Children Art (Published by Evan Moor)

This is similar to Building Spelling Skills, but it’s not entirely filled with blackline masters. Don’t get me wrong, there are some reproducibles in this book, but it’s mostly a full color book with material lists and step-by-step lesson plans. Each lesson in the first part of the book focuses on specific elements in art, such as lines, shapes, and colors. Later, advanced lessons incorporate these elements for students to gain experience using them. I find this to be a very educational and methodical approach to studying art as opposed to just completing random projects that I find on Pinterest. Truly, I love this book.

Daily Geography Practice — Grade 2 (Published by Evan Moore)

I hope you realize by now that I’m obsessed with Evan Moor’s teaching resources. So, it shouldn’t surprise you that I’m also using their Daily Geography Practice Blackline Master. It’s set up with the same principle as the spelling book — one activity a day, for 5 days, each week.

Muzzy (BBC)

I’m not kidding when I say that I’ve been eyeing Muzzy for a very long time. The big, green, furry monster has been around for nearly 30 years — and I’ve been waiting for over twenty just to learn a foreign language from him. My parents never purchased the Muzzy program for me, but now I get to brush up on my Spanish alongside my son. So far it’s a hit, though I do plan to supplement with worksheets and bilingual story books.

Moving Forward

As I go into this second week, I know that I will have more challenges in the future.

I just need to make sure that I do the best that I can with what I have.

I’ll keep failing, and I’ll keep trying. In that I’ll find my success and show my son that it’s important to never give up.

One week down, 34(ish) to go.

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This article was originally published on OhHeyItsRay.com

Oh Hey, It’s Ray is a real estate investor, entrepreneur, and former real estate agent. She lives happily with her husband and two children in the Pacific Northwest. See more from Ray at her YouTube channel and on Ohheyitsray.com