Reading Pride

Reading in our house isn't a task to be done instead its a love to be nurtured. My daughter started "reading" at age 20 months. She would often plop down on the couch with a book and read the pictures, if she knew the story she would try to read to me. By age five she demanded I teach her to read so we started homeschool kindergarten and in six weeks she was reading Dick and Jane books by herself. Seeing her face as she connected sounds with letters and letters with words was exciting for both of us and I loved building her little library of books.

Now at age nine E is reading Charlotte's Web, Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events and Black Beauty she will throw in a quick read like Junie B. but she is enjoying the bigger books because they have more adventures and more detail that hold her interest longer. For about five years now her Grandma has been reading to her a couple times a week, I am pretty much left out of the read-aloud time because "Grandma does it better" but I don't mind how can I scoff at their time together. The Five Little Peppers, Little Women and Little House on the Prairie series have all been read so they have moved onto The Lion, Witch and the Wardrobe series this summer.

With summer comes reading contests and E is taking part in three right now each requiring a different number of books. I told her if she wanted to do that many contests she couldn't cheat and put the same books on each list so she collected a nice big stack of books and got started. Watching her fill those lists makes me proud because of our hard work five years ago she is now able to create her own fun and use those books to travel through time and to other countries without any prodding from me. Conversations about dragons and their ability to breath fire or if its possible for a family to really adopt a mouse instead of a human child are just normal to us and many times I have seen disappointment in her eyes when friends don't share her interest in these topics. That is when I remind her that the ability to read is very different from the love for reading and we need to teach others that words and books are treasures never to be wasted.

Grateful Sunday- Hairstyling

One thing that I am really grateful for and costs me next to nothing is playing with my daughters hair. Before she was born a friend gave me the best piece of advice when having a girl "play with her head all the time; brush it, comb it, touch it" she said it would help with styling later on and boy was she right. Right around nine months E had enough hair to put in little pony tails and even though they were more like skinny sticks I thought she was adorable. By the time she was two years it was no big deal for her to have her whole head neatly lined with ponytail cornrows or a few little buns. 
Whenever people would compliment her hair it was always followed by "how do you get her to sit still?" Hurray for cartoons; they helped a lot when she was little but thankfully know at age nine she likes to stand in front a mirror and watch. 

Styling hair may seem like a silly or vain thing to be grateful for but I would rather have my daughter send hours playing with her hair then stressing about her body, the clothes she wears or the things her friends have. Her hair doesn't define her but it is part of her personality. When she was four and saw me dying my hair she asked if hair dye came in black I told her yes so she asked if she could dye her hair black like Violet Incredible. I told her when she was fourteen she could whatever she wanted with her hair so she decided that she wanted it black with pink stripes. Really with all the problems in this world if my teenager's worse behavior is changing her hair color every week or even shaving it all off I will proudly count myself blessed.

YouTube has provided me with lots of help. BabesinHairland, alreadyaprincess, CuteGirlsHairstyles, Princesshairstyles are my favorites for hair tutorials. Last summer I tried to do a different style everyday which I  did for a month but it got hard even with all their ideas, I admire these women and all the time they put in their tutorials. Have fun this summer and play around you never know you may have a hidden talent for styling and the time spent with your daughter is worth every second.

You homeschool, why?!

"Why do you homeschool?" I cringe when I hear this mainly because in all my years I have never once asked "Why do  you send your kids to public school?" It is silly that this question even exists but it does so I must answer. 

This is a surprisingly difficult question to answer because there is no one reason it really depends on the day I am asked and the mood I am in. If its been a difficult day teaching then I might answer "because the public school would label her ADHD when she really just needs to run around with the dogs for an hour", if its been a funny day then I might say "She would drive the teachers insane with her questions about belly buttons and ear wax" 

Trying to pick one answer out of hundreds is frustrating and sometimes I feel like a dork for not having that one perfect answer. However one reason is consistent; me!

I want to be the one to see her milestones; hearing her excitement when she read a Clifford book all by herself for the first time.

I want to be there the light bulb goes off; seeing her roll her eyes and shake her head when she figures out trick to long multiplication.

I want to help her discover her passions; watching her use a map to plot locations while watching movies or running errands.

Is it selfish for me to be her teacher? Nope because I am also be guilty of being a mother. Remember there was a time in our world when it was strange if not horrifying to send your child to a school house and let someone else teach your child the life skills and morals they would need in life. Families taught children everything they needed to know and our country didn't suffer from it. Examples; John Adams, Abraham Lincoln, both Roosevelt Presidents, Frank Lloyd Wright and Ansel Adams. Their mothers all saw potential in their children as do most moms so when it came time to start school homeschooling was the most natural thing to do.

Being a single parent was nearly a con but God heard my prayers and has allowed me to work from home so I know that this is right for our family. It hasn't been easy and I am grateful that I don't have to worry about school uniforms, getting her to school on time, lost permission slips and parent teacher meetings. On the subject of parent teacher meetings that proves comical at times since I am both; teacher "Did you know that your child has been asking for the answers to her math problems rather then working them out herself", me "Yes I did, I admit I am guilty of indulging her once in a while", teacher "Well stop it!"

Where our children learn isn't half as important as the time we spend with them. I can remember before my mom began homeschooling me and my siblings she was always dragging us kids to hiking trails, museums and libraries encouraging us to read about the things we loved, she called it after-schooling and we enjoyed it. Learning never stops and I love to point out to people that ask me why I homeschool, Hey you do too. When a friend took her daughters fishing I reminded her that she was teaching them ichthyology (study of fish) and showing them how the settlers caught their meals. The more we talked the more she saw that she was in fact teaching them just as much as their school teacher simply by being an interactive family. 

The next time you think of asking someone why they homeschool remember that you most likely do it too.

Welcome Home.

Welcome to Coming Home. Let me introduce myself; I am Melissa and its so nice to have you stop by. I am a Christian, homeschooling, crafty, food loving, single, stay at home working mommy actively striving to become more self sufficient.

Please forgive me for my novice blogging posts they might be a little short or too long, too full of information or not enough.

The concept of blogging is still a little weird to me. I follow blogs of different people like Leigh Anne Wilkes and Kandee Johnson; thinking to myself how rich and full their lives are with so many people and adventures. So what in the world do I have to blog about? Do I blog like a journal or do I create something to blog about? Well Leigh Anne was interviewed by Dave Anderson for KATU am northwest about how to be a successful blogger. Her advice to write what your passionate about sounds simple enough.

So what am I passionate about? Faith, crafting, food, homeschooling, sustainable living, gardening, life in general really. There are thousands of blogs about those subjects so how do set myself apart from them? I guess that is a trial and error thing really. For the most part I know that my desire to be more self-sustaining in all aspects of life is what I will be blogging about because it blankets a wide variety of subjects.

One example is food. I love to cook but being pre-diabetic and having hypertension I have to be careful with what I eat. By cooking at home I can be adventurous with my meal planning which means I need to grow food for those meals. Canning and freezing meals are always on my list of priorities because they not only give us food all year but also gives me more time to do other things.

By saving myself time I am able to focus on things like art projects with my daughter or figuring out if I can raise chickens affordably. Growing up my family was never near wealthy or even middle class but poor doesn't seem to fit us either. We learned to make do and I feel that I had a great childhood overall because of those hard but creative times. Now that so many people today are in the same financial row boat I hope that I can share my own experiences along with tips on how to live great for little or nothing. So come with me as I dive deeper into this adventure of blogging.