The other night, my husband, Bobby, came downstairs after the kids were in bed and I was just sitting at our countertop, chin propped in my hands. Apparently I was staring into space and he said, “Is everything ok? You look…different.”
Different? That can’t be good…
I looked up at him with tears in my eyes and he leaned across the counter from me and said, “Oh, gosh, hon, what’s wrong??”
I told him that I didn’t know what was wrong, but he wanted to know. I thought for a moment to try and figure it out, and finally I said, “I guess that right now, my entire life just feels like a game a Whac-A-Mole.”
If you’ve never played Whac-A-Mole, it’s an arcade game that involves whacking plastic mole/beaver/rodent-looking things as they pop up sporadically from holes. You hit them with a big, soft mallet and as you hit one, the next ones (or two or three) pop up. Most of the time, you can’t keep up, and that’s the point of the game.
But that’s not the point of life, right?
Bobby and I had a long, drawn-out conversation about how to minimize the moles I’m whacking everyday. Or, should I say, the way I could possibly get more order of those moles (in this case, three children that are demanding in very different ways, and who pop up at the most random times, all day long.)
This is just part of the deal with homeschooling, right? We went from organized chaos – schedules and rushing around to get everything done on time – to a slower pace, but with equal amounts of possible chaos.
Now we have to get all things done with the kids at our feet. For the past three weeks, I’ve been playing Whac-A-Mole 24/7. I’ve maintained all household duties while trying to get my boys (3rd and 5th grades) to do their schoolwork simultaneously. And I would play with my daughter on and off and let her float through her day longing for me to play with her 24/7 and I just lost my mind.
The boys are self-sufficient in some ways, but in need of extreme handholding in other ways. So, rather than roll out of bed into an arcade filled with Whac-A-Mole games that I’m trying to play all day and going crazy because of it, I came up with a game plan.
I get my boys started on their schoolwork in the morning, with tasks I know they can do on their own (whereas before, I was trying to go in order of the teacher’s day plan – then I realized, I can create my own plan timeline!). While they’re working, I do a few house chores and involve my daughter so she’s not “Mommy!”-ing me all morning.
Wow, did that ever pay off! She actually enjoys when I hand her a small pile of her laundry and ask her to put it away in her dresser drawers. She gets excited to pull up her stool and dry my pots and pans as I do the dishes. She loves that one-on-one attention, and I think she views it as “playing” with me. I know this phase will fade as she gets older, but I’m enjoying it now, and it’s helping with all of our sanity during this time!
As for the boys, I spend a couple of hours in the morning with my oldest, Andrew, while I give Evan (8) the assignment of playing with Ava. That’s right…I added an extracurricular activity to his schedule, which is to play and get along with his sister for about an hour! It’s either that or schoolwork, and he always chooses the playtime. Once Andrew’s work is done, the afternoon rolls around and it’s his turn to play with Ava while I help Evan with what he has left to do.
By 2 p.m., we’re done with school and the kids have the rest of the day to play. When Bobby gets off work (aka walks downstairs from our bedroom makeshift office), we eat a quick dinner together and I go upstairs to do a couple hours of work/schoolwork. I still do some writing for a few different websites as my part-time job, and I am in my third class for my master’s degree. It’s not an easy act to juggle right now, but it’s working because, after three weeks, I have finally learned to play the game.
Mid-LIFE Reinvention 