Survival Mode for a Homeschooling Mama

Gonna be real with you, folks. This has been a tough season for me. I've spent most of this year doing some digging around in my heart-closets, I've discovered more junk than I knew a heart could hold. As I've been seeking The Lord, talking to a friend or two, crying, I've still been needing to do my job.

Believe me, I'm wishing there were subs for this. Wishing I could call in sick. But sadly, as all mothers know, life doesn't stop when you're sick, or tired, mad or heart-sick.

So this is why someone coined the term "survival mode."  Some days are just like that. Me, groping along withy boys, doing my best when I'm having a crummy day.

Admittedly this is much easier than it used to be. The boys are older, can all read, write- do a few things alone. So I've kind of worked over the last year or two to help the boys to do school on their own some days. The boys call it 'easy school'. I call it mom is lazy (or upstairs journaling) school.

We have a white board in the school room, I write down a checklist for each of the kids. They love this!  Then I just send them off to work. They can work through math, some language arts, review CC, AWANA, Latin, on their own. I usually double their assigned reading.

And then I go, clean of I'm mad or cry if I'm sad.

I've been reading and learning about grief (in my case, delayed grief.)  I'm learning about grief containers.  Allowing myself certain times of the day, certain places to let myself grieve and be sad.  It doesn't always seem that simple, but I'm learning.

I'm also learning about self soothing.  Taking care of myself like a mom would care for her sad little one.  Take a bath, take a walk, take a cup of tea or a phone call.  Do some of those things that help me to feel a bit better, or just things that have been points of joy for me.

So we're rolling with it, the boys and I.  Homeschool wouldn't be complete without it's fair exposure to 'real life' studies, right?  While I mostly work to protect the boys from the harshness of my emotions, I allow them to know that I'm working through things, I've been sad, and it's not about them.  It's the best I can do until I train a substitute.   Applications?