Overrated...

A list of things I'm not into...right now.

• Sorting laundry
• Politics
• Measuring before hanging pictures
• Recipes without substitutions
• Grass (as in "lawns")
• Preschool
• Disposable Products
• "Me Time" (I kind of like my husband and kiddos)
• Shopping for Clothes
• War on Germs (aka "antibacterial" everything)
• Washing clothes before wearing them
• Stuff (aka "dust catchers" or "attic fillers")
• Meat as the main dish (I'm sorry, Pack...it's not you, it's me.)
• Phone calls
• Eyebrow maintenance
• Running
• Having to CLEAN a washing machine (seriously, my oven can practically clean itself, but the washer???)     Speaking of...
• Front loading, HE washers
• Itineraries on vacations
• Coupons
• Uninterrupted sleep (who needs it, anyway!?)

Actually, it sounds like I might need a few nights of uninterrupted sleep...I sound like a complete grump!  Maybe I'll make a new list of things I actually like...some other time.

P is for Patience.

Week one of "home-preschooling" is over!  On Monday, we started this simple little curriculum I bought from Laura Coppinger at www.heavenlyhomemakers.com, called, "Learn Your Letters, Learn to Serve."  It's as simple as it sounds and I loved it as soon as I saw it because it gave me an opportunity to try out homeschooling without dishing out tons of cash for a preschool curriculum that was totally unnecessary.  I also loved that I could take this and run with it completely or just use bits and pieces of it that would fit into our days.  I am all about using someone else's good ideas:)  And who doesn't want to teach their children to have a servant's heart???

I was going to tell you all about it...how I bought it, what we did day by day, why I chose not go linearly through the alphabet...you know, stuff you're probably not that interested in.  Instead, I'll tell you this story and you will hopefully see the heart behind the lessons.

Day One.  We talked the Letter "P" to death.  Penn really liked the idea of "school" so I thought things were going pretty well.  Then, we tried to think of people that we could pray for that started with "P."  Unfortunately, we could only think of four people (bet you can guess two of them...).  It suddenly occurred to me that "penny" starts with "P" and when I worked in a public school, we took up a collection for "Pennies for Patients."  That sounded perfect to me!  I told Penn that we would be on the lookout for pennies for a while and that we would give them to sick people in the hospital.  Shortly after, I found him in his room, dumping out all of his money from his banks.  He was separating all the pennies so he could give them to the sick people.  I think I might have cried.

I see a ton of lessons about serving in that face right there...and I'm the one who needs to learn them.

Preschool???

Am I being unconventional when I say that I don't think it's necessary to go to preschool?  I've been getting a lot of information lately that is supposed to make me decide I should send my 3.5 year old to preschool to "get him ready" for regular school.

I'm not buying it.

I understand that a lot of kids end up in preschool because both parents work or because maybe the child requires some special instruction (like language, for example) that the parents cannot provide, but besides that...I don't get it.

These are the two guilt trigger phrases that I feel are thrown at parents the most:

• Your children need the socialization that they will get from other kids at a daycare/preschool. Uh....no they don't!  If mom needs some socialization away from the kids, that's one thing, but my 3.5 year old doesn't need to socialize with anyone except me.  No one will deny that kids model their behavior after the behavior of the parents more often than not.  With good role models as parents, your children will be plenty fine learning from socializing with you!  I'm not saying that you should keep your kids away from opportunities to play and engage with other children; I think that it's vitally important that kids know how to react with their peers.  Instead, I'm suggesting that your kids will benefit from as much quality time with you as possible in the early years.  Don't feel that you're depriving your kids of a necessary experience by choosing to forgo preschool.
  
• Kids who go to preschool do better in school and are more ready for it.  There are a couple of reasons that I take issue with this.  First of all, I didn't go to preschool and I think I was plenty prepared for school when I started after adjusting for a couple of days.  That makes this argument personal.  Secondly, from an educational background, your kids aren't learning that much in preschool that you couldn't teach at home.  Don't believe me?  Read up on What Your Child Should Learn in Preschool and ask yourself if you have basic knowledge of those skills (That's a joke.  You know how to do all of it...hopefully...if not, you might want to think about preschool).

I am not trying to make anyone feel guilty who is already sending their child or children to preschool.  Moms already deal with enough guilt for every single other parenting decision out there from breastfeeding and diapers to co-sleeping and car seats.  Not sending your kids to preschool is just something that we don't need to feel guilty about and it's frustrating that people wold assume we wouldn't do what we thought was best.  If I'm happy being with my children and they are well-adjusted and healthy, then to me, that's the best-case scenario.  After all, they are only little for so long and I want to soak up every little bit of their childhood as possible!