School, sorta

A big box of homeschooling supplies arrived yesterday. This morning Snuggler is pestering me about when we can start school. Last night she and Little Guy got out the geoboards and copied various designs onto them with rubber bands; this morning Dancer is doing some math online. Little Guy has looked through his phonics book and just announced, irritated, "Mom, there are only eight booklets to make in this whole thing!"

Me, I don't wanna. I figured out enough about what we're going to do (the Middle Ages) that I could order supplies, but I haven't read through anything yet. My brain is fixated on editing the book, and on transporting various kids to their various therapies, and getting Big Guy placed in a residential school, and helping kids deal with Eldest's departure, and a few other minor details. Somehow the idea of having to fixate on school, too, kind of makes my brain rip.

But hey, this is life, and part of life is doing what you've gotta do. The older I get, the more I realize that the I can't take this! that periodically screams through my head is just that: a voice screaming through my head. It has little to nothing to do with reality. We can take -- and do -- a lot more than we think. Most of our I can't do this feelings are simply a well-disguised I don't like this protest.

The truth is that when we think we have to do something -- have to as in we really have no other choice -- we somehow ante up the energy or determination or resignation to get it done. We dig deep, because the alternative is... ugh.

So tonight I'm going to look at what we have, rustle up Beowulf for Dancer to start, read over the Met Museum's teacher guide to Medieval art. I'm sure once I carve out a section of my cluttered brain and label it "School", good things will fill up the space in no time.

Don't ask what will happen to the other things currently occupying that area of my brain. If I'm lucky, it will be the gray matter that retained the lyrics to the Gilligan's Island theme song, and the last name of the boy in third grade who maneuvered the bucket of chalkboard-washing water so that I stepped in it. If not, well, life will be interesting!