Perfect Homeschooling vs Real Life

Perfect Homeschooling:

1. Up at 6am to make pancakes, sausage, and toast.
2. The household wakes up to the smell of food.
3. Chores are done by 8:00am.
4. Children with faces washed and teeth brushed sitting at the table by 9:00am.
5. Studies are worked at diligently until lunch time.
6. Children make lunch while mom gets the afternoon studies ready.
7. A science experiment is done with great success.
8. Homeschool group meets for a field trip at the observatory.
9. Supper is made while the children play quietly.
10. Everyone meets around the table and discusses the day.
11. Prayers and bible time, bath time, story time, then bed.
12. All children are in bed by 7:00pm and sleep soundly until morning.

Real life:

1. Get out of bed around 6:00am because nobody has slept since 3:00am. Might as well start the day.
2. Grab a muffin, granola bar, cereal, or whatever is easy and available.
3. Add caffeine.
4. Let dogs out and stare out into the bleak dark abyss of night because the sun isn't up yet.
5. Add caffeine.
6. Start harping on children to get chores done.
7. Explain what the chores are, again.
8. Show chore chart and harp some more.
9. Join children in doing the chores.
10. Just do the stupid chores yourself.
11. Add caffeine.
12. Hunt down math book.
13. Look up websites about math because dog ate math book.
14. Check facebook and emails.
15. Pull out reading.
16. Encourage, beg, plead, bribe, threaten.
17. Find can opener in freezer crisper and try not to guess how it got there.
18. Have lunch.
19. Discover dogs have eaten socks.
20. Use socks and the dog slobber as a lesson in science and life skills about using clothes basket.
21. Take children out to activity with anyone that can stand us long enough.
22. Add caffeine.
23. Rake leaves while discussing why they change colour.
24. Hope none of the dog poop got raked up in the pile of leaves because children are jumping in it.
25. Begin supper.
26. Tell children to get along with a lecture on the history of war-any war.
27. Go back to making supper.
28. Yell at dogs to get off counter.
29. Go back to making supper.
30. Bring children in to the kitchen and talk about kitchen chemistry and have them help with supper.
31. Call Hubby, need something for supper.
32. Listen to Hubby talk and talk.
33. Take dogs out.
34. Burn supper.
35. Hubby gets home with wrong item.
36. Hubby tries not to make faces while eating burned supper.
37. Make more meals for children because today they didn't want to eat the thing that was their favourite thing last week.
38. Add caffeine.
39. Everyone eats all over the house.
40. Prayers louder than barking, stopping to tell children to stop elbowing each other, bible on audio, skip bath and remind children to actually use soap to wash their hands and face.
41. Hold down child to brush teeth.
42. Put children to bed.
43. Eat chocolate.
44. Put children to bed again.
45. Get children a snack and water.
46. Put to bed again.
47. Realize you forgot their medication.
48. Put to bed again.
49. Pass out.
50. Wake up and put children to bed again.
51. While planning the next day to unschool, talk to Hubby about how this is EASIER than IEP meetings, fighting for implementation of therapy, consistency, and working through the art of school politics!

Side Note: We really don't homeschool like this...most days.