Thank you...

Thank you to all the readers who listened to me gripe and complain about my children yesterday. Thank you for not writing a comment about how horrible I am. What a horrible woman I must be to be frustrated with two little children from Africa. They can't help it. Trust me, I have already chastized myself enough for all of us. After I wrote it, I considered deleting it; then I got busy. Imagine that.

So often, I get people who say, "you're so amazing." "You're a super mom." blah blah blah. And while my ego likes to hear these things, it's so not true. I lose my temper and patience as much, if not more. I have high expectations; probably too high. I don't want people to think that we are some weird family who never fights, who never has down days, who never worries about the future. I do. I worry all the time. I'm worrying right now.

I hope and pray that they will understand why we expect so much out of them. Today, Justine, who is probably the wisest child in the house, said, "Mom, I know you just want us to turn out to be edumacated..." She's right. There is a lot of pressure with homeschooling. Perhaps I try to do too much for fear of doing too little? Better to teach them more than they need to know than to miss something they do need to know.

Tonight, I was complaining about long division with my friends.
"How hard could it be?" I exasperatedly asked.
"In the middle of summer?" they responded, "Pretty hard."
So perhaps I need to simmer down and attempt to relax a little?

I write this blog for several reasons, one is to keep a record for myself and the kids, although they will probably want to avoid 6/16/09's post. I also write as an outlet for myself. As you can imagine, with all of these youngsters, I don't get a lot of free time for manicures, movies or "me" time. This has become that. I can pour myself into this computer and then leave it here. I can complain about dyslexia or laziness or adolescent funks here and then move on and forget about it. Unfortunately, you all get the brunt of it. But I want to be real. I want to be able to share the ups as well as the downs. Parenting 6 kids is no easy feat. Working. Homeschooling. Attempting to maintain a marriage. None of it is easy. But it's real and it's us. So there you go.

Thank you for praying for us. You will never know how much we appreciate that. We need it.

Thanks.