I've given birth to Mike Sever

I've been homeschooling L and O, and I guess inadvertently, K this entire school year. I started out homeschooling L and O because of the sorry excuse for preschools in our area and since K wants to do everything they do, she's learning right along with them.

In the beginning of the school year, things were great, fun, exciting, thrilling--they were swell. And, for the most part, as far as O is concerned, things are still swell. L is another story...

Now, we are the complete opposite of swell. If swell were a food it would be a big, giant piece of chocolate cake dripping in luscious chocolate frosting. Right now folks, we're enduring the homeschooling equivalent of liver and onions.

These are the things he doesn't want to do ever in his little 5 year old life:
1. learn to tie his shoes
2. say the Lord's Prayer with his sisters and me. He'd rather sit like a mute even though he knows all the words. I make them say this every day because for every funeral and wedding they attend on my husband's side of the family, they'll be saying it and I want them to know what to say. Plus, I want them to learn Bible versus while we homeschool, so this is killing two birds, you might say.
3. say the Pledge of Allegiance. Again, he's mute.
4. learn to read three letter words.
5. sit still unless he's actually in a chair. How will he ever survive Kindergarten if he can't sit still on carpet?

Here is what he wants to do:
1. learn math
2. bark like a dog
3. write his first name--but not his last. He won't even include a last initial which will possibly be problematic seeing as we live in a small town and there is another boy with his same name entering Kindergarten this fall.
4. play Lego Starwars on the computer
5. talk to his sisters during story time
6. do ridiculous things to make his sisters laugh and then when corrected says, "But Mommy, I'm just trying to make them joyful!" Then he shoots me that GRIN.

It was today that I realized who he reminds me of: Mike Sever. Remember Mike from Growing Pains fame? Cute, fun loving, kind, crazy, silly Mike. It makes a great t.v. character, but a very frustrating little five year old.

Part of the problem is that I'm realizing more and more I am a perfectionist. And, although I don't voice this out loud to my children, in my mind I am comparing L to his brother J who since the moment he arrived on this earth, has been the epitome of compliant.

It's all a challenge and it's teaching me a lot of patience and I'm learning to see the positives and praise him for those instead of being a bothersome nag. I've known many people who have home schooled and none of them have ever said how frustrating it was. Either I'm doing something wrong, or they weren't being completely honest because homeschooling is hard. Sometimes it's not fun and if I had to do it indefinitely, I'm not sure I could.

Meanwhile, I'm enjoying this time I have with them. In a few months they'll be off to "real" school. The house will be quiet. And I will miss L's barking and his silly jokes like crazy.