A Triathlete is biking…

…15 miles at 20 miles per hour. How long does it take?

If you answered, “I need a cup of coffee.” We are on the same page!

My son is working on 6th grade math. My 9 year old is finishing up some iPad time, and my youngest is doing a workbook for ages 6-7. It’s a little above her, but she likes to do the crosswords they have in it. It’s funny, we’ve been homeschooling for 4 years. I didn’t realize the loss I would feel when the school closed. Like a trapeze artist who just watched them take away the safety net.

School is a tough one for me. Like all things, there are good parts and bad parts, pros and cons. To recap, when my son was in first grade, I went to his teacher conference where it was told to me, “He’s reading at a 5th grade level!” Cut to the end of the school year where I get this sassy email about how my son does pay attention and “You need to get this cleaned up before next year!” Cleaned up??!!! What a dumb a&%.

Homeschooling is hard and great. Both at different times and sometimes at the same time. Spending time teaching has the natural effect of causing a person to question why this and why that. Your mind just become a million question marks.

That’s when you need to get back to the basics. Life is easier when you can read. I feel like that’s a given. It would be very difficult to get by without reading. Math is also needed. Though I will say that I struggled to give people the right change when worked in jobs where that was part of my work, and somehow I’m still a financially stable adult.

When we think about education, we need to include what best things in life. When we think about education, we have to ask ourselves about the big picture. What kind of life do we want? What kind of life do we want our children to have? What are the skills needed to thrive?

I can’t answer those questions today…but it’s looking like I’m going to be home a lot. Like ALOT. So, I will continued this monologue as soon as possible.

Also, Tricia is back to being quarantined to her room. If you have her cell phone, give her a call on FaceTime. Remember that she never hangs up and this isn’t because she wants to keep talking. She will simply wait for you to hang up. Even if you say, “Bye.” This has always been true, since I was a teenager. She will just breathe into the phone, waiting for you to end the call. On average, she likes to talk for about 8 minutes. Longer than that, and she will watch TV while keeping the phone call going and/or get irritated because it is time to eat…but she will not tell you that its time to eat. My God, I miss Tricia!!!

All my love,

Terra