The Hum of the Dishwasher

October 02, 2007 | Category: One House Schoolroom

We have reached our limit - and it is 4 hours.

More than 4 hours and the world falls apart in screeches and stomped feet.

For more than a week now, we have been "With Kitchen". A world that is infinitely nicer than the alternative.

For more than a week now, I've kept up with the dishes and the laundry and managed to squeeze in at least 4 hours of homeschooling each day.

We rely mostly on Spectrum's "Little Critter" series for the basics of Reading, Writing, and Math.

And then I have an entire crate to fill in with each day: Pirate stories, tales from Scandinavia, puzzles, mazes, hidden pictures, logic problems, patterns (like tessellations or linear what's next ones), sign language, maps, dinosaurs, and astrology projects.

I have a couple of books that tell me what he should know at the end of the year, and my own education experience. And it comes together.

But spend more than 4 hours at that table, and he boils over. Even if I break things up with Magnetix and walks and housework and errands.

But around here? There are no deliverables. The quotas need never be met. The return on investment is drawn with big markers and the project plan consists of the available groceries divided by possible dinner menus.

I read my last post, and it made it seem like life was gray, that the song was a dirge, and that I was wallowing in my own fear.

But that is only 15 minutes a day.

No, I won't lie and say the impression is wrong.

I'll just say, it isn't exactly... right.

The days are so much more that what I am afraid of, or angry about. They are also filled with my son's voice reading a story made up of words he learned from me. Of the puppy slinking off her rug closer and closer to us until she can lean herself against our legs.

And the blessed hum of the dishwasher.

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