If

Another week begins today.  Right now it's raining outside and my pajama-wearing little ones are playing in Rigel's room. They must know that I'm awake and no one has eaten breakfast, but their sounds of cooperation and fun are too precious to interrupt.  Even as I strive to balance the academics, the project-based stuff, wanting to get outside more, and the probably too-many activities we are involved in this month, I know that what is happening in Rigel's room is better than rushing to start our next lesson.

And today may be a day without formal lessons...  today we are playing "catch up".  Last week we had 4 "school" days, but somehow we didn't get to the fun activities that we wanted to do to go along with our lessons.  So today, we are doing it!  We are mummifying that chicken!  The salt, baking powder and baking soda are purchased and I have rubbing alcohol to cleanse the bird.  So sometime, in a while, when the games in Rigel's room stop, we'll get dressed, have some food, and mummify that chicken.  And then maybe we'll have an apple taste test and make some applesauce from the apples we picked last week.  I'll read a few stories, and then after lunch we can pick up some books from the library.  Maybe we'll go for a walk in the rain?  Or not, I'm not sure.

I do know that ultimately one of the most important things to me in homeschooling this year is to help my kids, but especially Rigel, build his character and resilience.  That might happen through the process of academics, but books and studies are not the only way.  I have long- loved the poem IF by Rudyard Kipling.  So today I challenge myself to work on living the "IF" poem myself and trying to focus more on living and modeling and discussing a principled and loving life to my little ones.  That's enough for today.

IF 

By 

Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you   

    Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,   

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,

    But make allowance for their doubting too;   

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,

    Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies,

Or being hated, don’t give way to hating,

    And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;   

    If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;   

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster

    And treat those two impostors just the same;   

If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken

    Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,

Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,

    And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

    And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

    And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew

    To serve your turn long after they are gone,   

And so hold on when there is nothing in you

    Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,   

    Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

    If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute

    With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,   

Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,   

    And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!