The question around the picnic table at park day last week was – “Are you going to take Spring Break off?”  It’s an interesting question. Should homeschoolers take the same breaks as the local public school kids?

What do you think? What does your family do?

Right now it is Spring Break in our corner of the world, and I have given my 11-year-old the week off. But not her siblings.

Why? Well, because when we take other breaks from school, she rarely gets a full break because she has outside activities and classes that follow a traditional public school holiday schedule, so she usually still has class when the rest of us are on break.

This week was an opportunity for her to have the full week off and take a good break before we push to finish up our school year.  Do I always do this? Absolutely not.

In my opinion, one of the best parts of homeschooling is the ability to take off time when it makes sense for our family, and not when the collective public is taking time off.  We school year around, so we don’t ever short ourselves on school days. In fact we get more than the average 180 days. So I’m just not worried about that part. 

But I do like the kids to have some downtime when their public school friends are out of school and enjoying some freedom. And generally I can work that in without too much difficulty. 

So far I haven’t found a compelling reason why we need to take the same breaks as our local public or private schools.  What are your thoughts?

One of my favorite flavor combinations are bananas and chocolate. And consequently, I find different ways to put these two together – like this Banana Chocolate Chip muffin recipe. It’s adapted from The New Laurel’s Kitchen cookbook, modified to meet my needs, depending on what I have on hand. 

These are yummy and healthy (especially if you use 60% cocoa dark chocoate chips instead of milk or semi-sweet chocolate).  And they freeze well.

Ingredients:
3 very ripe bananas (~ 1 cup mashed)
Juice of 1 lemon (I use 3 Tablespoons of lemon juice)
1/3 cup oil or butter (I use butter or olive oil)
1/2 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup wheat germ

~ 1/2 of a 12oz bag of chocolate chips (60% cocoa dark chocoate is the healthiest, but I’ve also milk chocoate and semi-sweet, depending who I’m making them for and their preference.)

Instructions:
Preheat oven to 375F.

Mash bananas and mix them with lemon juice until smooth. (If you have a
stand mixer – just mix the whole bananas and lemon juice until smooth)

Cream butter or oil and sugar together and add to the banana mix, stirring
well. (I soften the butter and put it in the mixer with the sugar and banana
mix and stir well.)

Sift together flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Mix in wheat
germ. (I just mix it all together in a separate bowl.) Add to banana mix.
Stir until mixed (DON’T OVERSTIR – just mix together until all ingredients
are moist.)

Gently stir in chocolate chips.

Makes 12 cupcakes (cook for 30 minutes) or 1 loaf of banana bread (cook for 45 minutes)
To test for doneness, insert a knife into the loaf or cupcakes. If it comes
out clean, it’s done.

Tip: When you have left over bananas that are starting to turn, just throw them into the freezer peel and all for the next time you want to make this or another banana bread/muffin recipe. Then when you are ready to use them, use the microwave to defrost them up so you can peel and mash the bananas.

Another Tip: To increase the fiber factor in muffins, try replacing 1/4 or 1/2 cup of the flour with Bob’s Red Mill Organic High Fiber Cereal mix. I’ve been doing this with pancakes, waffles, muffins, and rolls with great success and it really boosts the fiber content and adds the Omega-3s from the flax seed. Yummy and healthier!

The newly emerged Monarch Butterfly with the chrysalis in the background.

This week we released our first Monarch Butterfly! I love butterfly season. It was a bonus when we moved to Texas that we happened to be right on the migration path for the Monarch butterflies. 

The first year we were here, I planted milkweed and some flowers. Milkweed is the only plant that Monarchs will lay their eggs on, as it is the food their caterpillars eat.

Every Spring, I get to go out each day and count how many caterpillars we have on the milkweed. And because I love to do this, of course the kids think it’s great fun to try to discover the latest changes before mom does. 

The first year we did this, we learned how big the caterpillars grow before they disappear to create their chrysalises. So now, a couple times during the season, we take one caterpillar just at the big and fat stage and put it in my daughter’s Butterfly Habitat or one of the kids’ insect houses. And we watch the metamorphosis. It is always amazing to watch. Over time we’ve learned when the butterfly is about to emerge (the chrysalises becomes translucent and you can see the colors of the butterfly within).

Releasing the new monarch butterfly into the wild

It’s an event each time we release a newly emerged butterfly. Holding a new butterfly in your hand and finding just the right place for it to dry its wings and take off on its first flight – it’s always awe-inspiring and renews my faith.

It’s been three weeks now since I’ve given up soda (Coke, pop, soft drinks, whatever you call it).  And today is the first time I’ve had the headache… probably because I’m out of sparkling water.

In the past when I’ve given up soda, I’ve immediately been hit with the withdrawl headaches, which I can deal with as long as I’m not tired or trying to focus, but inevitably, I’ve headed back to my trusty Coke when I’m working or overtired.

Knowing that this was going to be a problem and really motivated to give soda up this time around, I decided to replace the soda with flavored sparkling water. And that’s been working! 

I found a brand that I liked that had no sweeteners (amazing how many have some sort of artificial sweetener in it).  But today I ran out of sparkling water. And here’s the headache again.

Instead I’ve been drinking mint tea and it has helped, but not eliminated it. But there must be something about the carbonated water that makes a difference in this.  I’ll have to research it more.

In the meantime I do feel better overall, having cut back so much on the “liquid sugar” and caffiene I was getting from the soda. The keys so far have been:

• Having a replacement drink for the stress times and the convenience times (I’m using bottled water in the car and cans/bottles of unsweetened, lemon-flavored sparkling water in the house and on outings)

 

• Eliminating the soda from the house – if someone else in the house wants soda, they have to buy it with their own money and keep it away from me.

 

• Knowing why I’m giving soda up and remembering it when I’m posed with the choice.

 

• Choosing an alternative drink when posed with the choice. (I’m using water, fruit juice, smoothies, etc.)

If you can, please say a prayer for me to continue to have the resolve to make these choices so that I can fully eliminate soda from my diet.

Do you have any more tips or experiences to share that will make this easier? 

If so, …please…please…share them in the comments! (I need all the help I can get )

I had to sit down with my 9-year-old son today and re-set expectations. For the last month, he’s been progressively slacking in his schoolwork, in his motivation to do schoolwork, and in his attitude.

I accept part of the responsibility in that I allowed him to slack off for a while when I was crazy busy with work. But the bottom line is that if he expects to move on to the next level of school, responsibilities, and ultimately – privileges, he needs to make some decisions. ‘Cuz, frankly his attitude and work this week is not acceptable in the real world, and certainly not here.

It’s not necessarily a fun decision to make – to sit my child down and tell him that some changes are needed. But I’ve had to do it on more than one occasion both with him and with his older sister. And I’m sure at some point I’ll need to do it with the youngers as well.

My approach though at this point though is to stop with the nagging, pulling along, and basically set him down as I would with an employee or as a mentor or coach. I told him that I know he is bored and doesn’t want to do it right now, but I also explained that everyone – including his daddy and I – have to do things that we don’t want to do because they need to be done.

The trick is to decide if we are going to drag them out and make them last and last and get in trouble because of it (yes, mommies and daddies get in trouble too – just in different ways). Or, are we going to learn to do them quickly and well so that then we can get on with the things we really want to do.  My son and I talked about what happens if you do something quickly but not well – you have to do it again and it takes even longer.

We also talked about responsibilities and privileges. And how if I can’t trust him to do the things that need to get done, how on earth was I going to be able to trust him to be responsible enough for the extra privileges he wants to do/have.

I offered up a solution for him to consider, one that works for my 11-year-old. I asked him to think about if he wants to try that or if he wants to come up with his solution of his own.

But the bottom line is, as he walked away was he controls how we interact on this issue both now and all through his life. I can’t make him improve his motivation and force him to do his schoolwork well. But I can make his (and my life) more difficult. But that’s not the relationship I want to have with my son and not the reason why we homeschool.

He needs to step up and decide how he wants to be treated and how he wants to deal with the more mundane responsibilities of life. 

Tomorrow we’ll meet again. He’ll make his choice and we’ll see how things work out. I’m sure that they will and I’m sure that over time we’ll have this conversation again. But for now, I’ve planted seeds and pray that they will grow. Because, I sure want to be able to give him the privileges and see him soar in the areas he is interested in and loves. But he also needs to live up to his responsibilities as well.